The Impending Visit Of The Fighting Sioux

By now you should have seen Athletic Director Josie Harper's letter of apology for scheduling the North Dakota Fighting Sioux in the Daily Dartmouth. In the apology, Harper wrote:

When we scheduled UND nearly two years ago to participate in our tournament, we did so without considering their team's nickname and symbol. Perhaps we should have, but I deeply regret that we didn't.

The spin has already started in reaction to the letter. The Deadspin, that is. The wildly popular site has mentioned the apology and the emails have come flying in. If you can get past the foul language and the bad taste, you'll find some interesting commentary (and some funny stuff as well) if you click here.

Two outtakes from a Manchester Union Leader column on the apology etc.:

Don Kojich, executive associate vice president for university relations at North Dakota, referred all questions to the state's attorney general, but did say that he has never heard of another school publicly apologizing for playing the Fighting Sioux.

And this:

Marty Scarano, the athletics director at the UNH, said no such measures were taken when the North Dakota's men's hockey team played at the Whittemore Center last year.

"UNH has not or will not make a judgment on another institution's prerogative pertaining to their logo or nickname," Scarano said.

The Powerline blog (a product of three Dartmouth-educated lawyers) tries to connect the dots between this controversy and football's struggles:

Zach Hafer is a 1999 Dartmouth alum, former member of the hockey team and supporter of Dartmouth athletics. He writes that he is not surprised "that the football team just capped another 2-8 season, given that the AD is spending her time meeting with 'aggrieved' students,' 'develop[ing] a specific and continuing plan to address issues of respect and tolerance within the athletic department,' and writing letters of profuse apology."

The Princeton Packet takes a lengthy look back at how the Tigers became a championship team. One of the amazing things, perhaps the most amazing, is they did it with a completely rebuilt offensive line. That simply doesn't happen. Here's coach Roger Hughes on how he and his assistants approached that problem:

"We tried to factor the offensive line out of the game plan. We wanted to get the ball to the perimeter. The other thing (quarterback Jeff Terrell) did was make it easier for the offensive line, he controlled what way we slid the protection. That way if blitzes were coming, he always had time to give it up. Who would have guessed that with our inexperience on the offensive line, we'd lead the league in total offense and give up the fewest sacks we've ever had? That just shows the kids hung in there and fought their tails off."

The Ivy League doesn't name a coach of the year but Hughes would get my vote for figuring that out. Columbia's Norries Wilson would get my second-place vote for coach of the year and Yale's Jack Siedlecki would be third. Why third place for the coach of one of the co-champions? I won't be spending much time bragging about my season (or game) predictions this year, but here's what I wrote about Yale before the season:

Yale might just be the sleeping giant of the Ivy League. If a quarterback steps up and a strong defensive line keeps a new secondary off the hot seat, the Bulldogs might be able to win it all. Harvard, Penn and Brown are in the spotlight but Yale might have as much talent as any of them.

By the way, I'm thinking about renaming my predictions the Green Alert Football Forecast. You could call it GAFFe for short.

Enjoy the leftovers, stay away from the mall and arrive home safely!