In the fall of 2005, the NCAA came out with a new referendum which banned the depiction of Native American mascots at any sanctioned NCAA Championship Event, and furthermore, any school with a Native American mascot or nickname must end their depiction of that mascot, as well as put into motion a plan for changing that nickname. Well, the backlash from this decree was so great that many schools were able to circumvent the referendum, which was eventually changed, and added a portion which stated that any school that could cite tribal approval, could keep their nickname and mascot in place. I'm sure that most of my classmates are aware of the way this rule change affected a school in this state about an hour southeast of ISU (I refuse to say their name due to a enormous amount of disgust and anger I feel for people who wear that school's apparel around campus, and even worse, to our games).
This whole issue, got me thinking about the root of nicknames and mascots in collegiate sports, which led me to do some research at the time, and eventually led me to choose that as my final project (so, um... dibs). What I came to, was that the initial nicknames came from the colors worn during their games - Dartmouth "Big Green", Harvard "Crimson", etc. Other names spawned from certain animals or events which were identifiably from that location - Texas "Longhorns" (the state which produces the majority of the nation's beef), Miami "Hurricanes" (with the eastern coast of Florida being the most popular location for the storm's arrival), etc. Later on, newer schools chose names with the intention of intimidating their opponents, to accomplish this, some schools added the word "Fighting" to their school's self-description - Notre Dame "Fighting Irish", and let us not forget our own school's historic nickname Illinois State Normal University "Fighting Teachers", etc.
The problem comes from when those lines get crossed. The question is if choosing a Native American nickname was meant to represent the area where the school is located, or represent the school's population, or meant to intimidate. If the choice is made for one of those first two reasons, such as the University of North Dakota "Fighting Sioux", and California State University at San Diego "Aztecs", then it is warranted. In my opinion, if they are for the right reasons, there is nothing wrong with Native American nicknames and the depiction of their mascots.
