No Chief on the Basketball Court

I'll be the first to admit that I have not kept abreast with the politics at my college campus. However, to my credit, not much has changed. It's 2006, yet U of I continues to use a Native American Chief as a mascot for the university. It's really disgusting.

But to my delight and surprise, I learn today that the National Collegiate Athletic Association created a policy that requires the university to drop its Chief Illiniwek mascot and logo because the image is "hostile and abusive". Illinois was one of 18 schools deemed by the NCAA executive committee last August to be using improper imagery or mascots. The organization decreed that any school continuing to use the images after Feb. 1, 2006, would be barred from hosting postseason competition and could not display the image at any postseason tournament.

The university, of course, is appealing and calling the policy "arbitrary and capricious".

Someone might want to inform the university that before they make such an argument, they should advise their student body, mostly made of drunk fraternity guys and dumb sorority sisters, to stop wearing the sweatpants with the big fat Native American face on their asses...