UND reports losing invite to controversy

The University of North Dakota athletics is reporting another loss, a March track meet at the University of Iowa, and attributing it to the ongoing struggle over the Fighting Sioux nickname and logo.

“They’ve just confirmed through their administration that we won’t be allowed to compete in that track meet,” UND Athletics Director Brian Faison said Tuesday.

Faison said the word came late Monday from Mark Abbott, associate athletic director at the University of Iowa.

“They’ve withdrawn our invitation due to the nickname and logo, because we’re back to the Indian head logo and the Fighting Sioux name,” he said.

In a telephone interview with the Herald, Abbott confirmed the action.

“We have an institutional policy against competition” with schools using nickname or imagery related to American Indian tribes, he said, in line with the NCAA policy against such usages.

“We embrace the NCAA policy,” Abbott said.

He would not comment beyond that on the UND nickname issue. “It’s a North Dakota issue,” he said. But “it does seem to be a bit more complicated there” than in other places.

Faison also said Tuesday that Iowa officials told him the school will honor a contract with UND for a women’s soccer match in the fall.

“They’re going to honor that contract because when it was entered into (in early January) we were not the Fighting Sioux,” he said.

Abbott also confirmed that decision.

UND had largely completed a transition away from the nickname and logo by the end of December, but the contested symbols were restored when nickname supporters filed petitions on Feb. 7 to refer action by the North Dakota Legislature in November that had restored an earlier law requiring UND to keep them.

The developments in Iowa follow earlier consequences of the nickname issue reported by the UND athletic department, including loss of a planned home-and-home basketball series with Iowa and a softball series that had been scheduled this spring with Wisconsin.

Chuck Haga is a reporter

at the Grand Forks Herald, which is owned by Forum Communications Co.

Tags: news, und, logo, nickname