Some Sioux Fight for the 'Fighting Sioux'

Even though the Supreme Court declined to rule on a challenge on whether the Washington Redskins name was offensive to Native Americans, the amount of Indian-themed names in sports (college, at least) has steadily declined over the last decade.

About 20 colleges have been urged by the NCAA to drop names considered disrespectful to Native Americans. One of the last holdouts is the University of North Dakota, which is locked in bitter squabbling between those willing to change the mascot from the Fighting Sioux to the alumni resistant to change.

Also unhappy about the change, some of the state's Sioux population.

Except that some members of the Spirit Lake Tribe, one of two groups of Sioux in the state, say they consider the nickname an honor and worry that abandoning it would send them one step closer to obscurity.

“When you hear them announce the name at the start of a hockey game, it gives you goose bumps,” said Frank Black Cloud, a tribal member. “They are putting us up on a pinnacle.”

And so, in a legal standoff that has turned some preconceptions upside down, North Dakota’s top state lawyers will be in court on Wednesday to oppose members of the Spirit Lake Tribe who have sued to preserve the Fighting Sioux name and logo, an image of an Indian in profile, feathers draping down.

No one ever claimed there was monolithic support for these changes from the Native American population. Every time a name is changed, the group opposed to it will usually trot out a dissident or two to argue in favor of the original name. This would change the dynamic significantly, except the university claims other schools may be shying away from playing them because of their contentious name. Meaning the Sioux image cuts into the bottom dollar, and that's really going to get administrators moving more than concern about offending or honoring anyone.

This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.