Developing story: In 2010, the United Kingdom denied the Iroquois Nationals entrance into the country to compete in the 2010 FIL World Lacrosse Championships because they refused to recognize the valid Haudenosaunee passports the Native squad travels with. As a result, the Nationals couldn’t play in the tournament, which is staged every four years, and Germany was placed in their spot in the elite Blue Division, which is home to the top six squads from the previous world championship.
Now, the FIL has ruled that the Nationals, a member nation, will not be restored to their legitimate place in the Blue Division for the 2014 World Championships, which will be held in Denver, because of what happened in 2010. Instead, Germany will again compete in the Blue, while the Nationals will be seeded 30th and placed in a lower division. This controversial decision by the FIL, which is falling back on “past precedence and bylaws” to justify the exclusion of the Nationals, is, the Iroquois say, an unfair and inconsistent move.
And the Nationals are appealing the decision.
In an April 18 letter to the FIL Board of Directors in Toronto, Nationals Chairman Oren Lyons and Executive Director Denise Waterman appealed, asking for the sport’s governing body’s general assembly to rule on the situation. Here is the letter.
With just over a year to go until 2014 Denver opens, the Nationals are pushing to get the FIL to reverse this decision and restore one of the sport’s best squads to its rightful spot among the elite nations. Morevoer, this controversy transcends sport or politics: Oren Lyons, Onondaga Faithkeeper, spoke at a seminar in 2010 about how lacrosse , or Deyhontsigwa’ehs (‘they bump hips’) was played in the sky world before the world was created. It is a game that was given as a gift to the Haudenosaunee and they play it for the pleasure of the Creator.
The Seattle Stars Youth Basketball Team Photo submitted by Marin Andrews
Article by Monica Brown
Tulalip Tribal member, Hazen Shopbell Jr. is in his second season on the elite basketball team in Seattle called the Seattle Stars. Seven year old Hazen has been playing basketball since he was three years old, when he played at the Boys and Girls Club and has been on Seattle Stars team since kindergarten. Hazen is the son of Marin Andrews and Tulalip Tribal member Hazen Shopbell and Tia Shopbell (stepmother).
Hazen and his teammate’s practice every week during which they run lines, do drills and practice making shots. Hazen’s mother, Marin Andrews said, “They practice on regular-sized hoops, the hoops are eight feet high.”
Joining the Seattle Stars Youth Basketball Club provides players and their families the opportunity to travel when the team competes in California and Nevada. The club is a very structured program that is dedicated to “teaching young boys, through the game of basketball, that success is measured by giving your best.”
In School Hazen’s favorite subjects are Physical Education and Art however he is very good at Math. Even though his favorite sport to play is basketball he has also participated in T-ball, soccer and gymnastics. The Seattle Stars Basketball Youth Club has teams for kindergarten through fourth grade; Hazen plans to stay with the club through fourth grade but is excited to begin playing football next year too.
Angel Goodrich, Native American Basketball Invitational (NABI) alumnus who recently was selected by the WNBA’s Tulsa Shock, only the second Native player to be drafted into the league, and Shoni and Jude Schimmel, the first Native Americans to play in an NCAA women’s basketball tournament championship game, were named the recipients of the 2013 Phil Homeratha Leadership Award. The award, named after the late Haskell Indian Nations University women’s basketball coach, Phil Homeratha, will be presented during the NABI Championship games taking place at U.S. Airways Center in Phoenix on Sunday, July 21.
Since the inception of NABI in 2003, NABI has chosen an individual that is making a difference in the advancement of Native American athletes to receive the award. “This year we chose to honor all three talented young ladies. Their achievements in the sport of basketball have been inspirational and will continue to inspire our Native American youth for years to come. It was an easy selection” says GinaMarie Scarpa, co-founder & chief executive officer of the NABI Foundation.
Rick Schimmel and Ceci Moses, parents of Shoni and Jude, are also scheduled to speak at the Educational Seminars held during NABI week, July 17-21. The seminars are organized during NABI to bring positive messages that inspire the athletes participating in the NABI tournament. Previous speakers have included: football and baseball great Bo Jackson, legendary LSU coach Dale Brown and Fox Sports reporter Jude LaCava.
This year’s tournament is expecting 128 teams, the largest NABI tournament to date. A Maori team from New Zealand will even be making the trip to compete. Games start on July 18 in 10 Phoenix area gyms with the championship games being played immediately following the Phoenix Mercury WNBA game on Sunday, July 21. People wishing to purchase NABI championship game tickets (copy0 each) will be allowed entrance into both the Mercury game and NABI championship games. All proceeds to benefit the nonprofit NABI Foundation.
NABI, co-founded by Mark West of the Phoenix Suns, the late sports promoter Scott Podleski and Scarpa, started out as a small local tournament in 2003 and since has become a youth nonprofit organizing one of the largest all Native American tournaments; bringing exposure to thousands high school athletes from all over North America.
NABI tournament sponsors include: Ak-Chin Indian Community, Nike N7, Phoenix Suns, Phoenix Mercury, Arizona Diamondbacks, Yavapai Prescott Indian Tribe, NIGA, and NCAIED.
By Vincent Shilling, Indian Country Today Media Network
Dennis Deninger, an Emmy-winning production executive, was one of the first coordinating producers of ESPN’s SportsCenter. He has produced live sports television from six continents and across the United States; he has currently set his sights to produce a documentary entitled America’s First Sport, on the history of lacrosse.
In an interview with ICTMN, Deninger, who is also a professor of practice in sports management at Syracuse University, talked about what he has learned in the process of making the documentary, and where he sees lacrosse going in the future.
How did your film get started?
I started teaching a course in the fall semester of 2012 called the History of Sport. We took students from the first accounts of sport being observed in the United States—which was lacrosse, when the Jesuits saw it in the 1630s for the first time—all the way up through the first Kentucky Derby, the origins of baseball, the invention of basketball, Teddy Roosevelt’s role in founding the NCAA and up to the present
Legends of the sacred game: Deninger with Jacques, left, Chief Powless, top, and Stenersen. (Courtesy Dennis Deninger)
day. That was the first two months of the semester—the last month of the semester, we focused on one topic. This year it was lacrosse. Each of our 15 students had to do a final research project that focused on lacrosse, and we’ve taken that research and hired a production company to work with us.
Who have you interviewed for the documentary?
We are not completely done, but we have interviewed 46 people so far. It’s going to be tough because this is only a one-hour documentary, so nobody gets to talk for more than a minute. We have strict rules here. [Laughs.] We’ve been to Baltimore to interview Steve Stenersen, the president and chief executive officer of U.S. Lacrosse. I interviewed Neal Powless who is an assistant director of the Native Student Program here at Syracuse; I also interviewed [Onondaga] Chief Irving Powless. There is a long list of lacrosse standouts in the Powless family. We also visited Alf Jacques, an Onondaga lacrosse stick-maker. It’s amazing to watch the stick being created—we were in the workshop for a few hours.
I talked to a number of Native American players and coaches, including Darris and Rich Kilgour [Tuscarora Nation] of the Buffalo Bandits in the National Lacrosse League. We’ve talked to women and men players. There is a young man who is a freshman at Onondaga Community College, Warren Hill, a goalie for the Iroquois Nationals. He grew up on Six Nations in southern Ontario. He is an all-world goalie and so humble about his accomplishments.
We sat down with Stan Cockerton, the president of the Federation of International Lacrosse. We found out about the effort to make lacrosse an Olympic sport again. We spoke with Jim Calder who is a co-author of Lacrosse, The Ancient Game. I spoke with Curt Styres, the owner of a Major League Lacrosse and a National Lacrosse League franchise. I also talked to him about the Lacrosse for Development Program, which is helping to fund an effort to put hundreds of sticks into the hands of indigenous young people to develop their knowledge of the ancient and sacred origins of the sport.
I have heard [Onondaga Turtle Clan Faithkeeper and Iroquois Nationals honorary chairman] Oren Lyons speak, and we are still waiting to interview him. I don’t want to go on without having his voice in this.
One of the longest interviews was with Chief Powless in his home. He is in his 80s now and confined to a wheelchair. We talked for over an hour and he told me wonderful stories of when he was 144 pounds playing against [NFL and lacrosse legend] Jim Brown. He talked about his knowledge of the hip bump and how he knocked Jim Brown on his back. When we stopped the interview, he says ‘Dennis, is that it? There’s so much more to tell!’ And that is true, there is so much more to tell.
When is this film due to be finished?
It will serve as the centerpiece for a symposium we are planning at Syracuse University on April 22 (Read more: ‘America’s First Sport’ Lacrosse Documentary Premiere and Symposium TODAY). We will play the film and have guests talk about the current state of lacrosse and the issues it faces, and where it is headed. We are hopeful to get an air date on the local PBS station and beyond that. We set our standards pretty high. If it goes beyond the local PBS station, that would be wonderful.
Where do you see lacrosse going?
I see a distinct trend toward making it more diverse. It separated in the 1860s and 1870s, when the Europeans set down rules. They said the Natives are professionals and professionals can’t play—because they were too damn good! The sport separated at that time.
What is encouraging to me is to see lacrosse programs get diverse youth involved, the recognition Native players are getting and how there is an opportunity for the Iroquois Nationals to compete as a team at the Olympics beginning in 2024. How exciting would that be?
I think there are wonderful things that lie ahead for lacrosse.
Tyler Fryberg carries the torch for the Special Olypmics Photo by Brandi Montreuil
Tulalip Tribal member Tyler Fryberg has set his mind to return to the Special Olympics Summer Games this year. Tyler has been participating in sports activities like track and field, cross country, basketball and bowling, since high school. Prior to the summer games last year, Tyler was asked to carry the Special Olympics Torch, which he gladly accepted and ran 18 miles.
“I definitely want to carry the torch this summer,” said Tyler “it’s so much fun.”
For the past few weeks Tyler and the Marysville team have been training and preparing for the Northwest Regional Spring Sports Festival on May 5th, 2013 at Marysville Pilchuck High School. Tyler will make every effort during the festival to qualify for the Special Olympics Summer Games that will be held at Joint Base Lewis – McChord on May 31-June 2.
This year at the festival, Tyler will be taking part in the 100 meter and the 4 X 100 meter relay along with two extra events; the shot put and the 400 meter.
“I’m okay at shot put” says Tyler, “The ball is eight pounds and my best throw is ten meters.” Tyler has been practicing the shot put since the beginning of winter.
Even though Tyler has FAS (Fetal Alcohol Syndrome), he has not let that determine his limits in life. In high school Tyler was accepted on the varsity track team at Monroe High School and ran a 5:28 mile. Tyler explains, “For someone that has a disability, I was trying to prove that they could get on the varsity track team, and I did. I was on the varsity team for two years.”
Tyler maintains a busy schedule of sports, training, school and volunteering. His favorite sport is running, but Tyler participates in other activities such as bowling and basketball.
“I actually won the bowling tournament, that was kind of cool.” boasts Tyler.
Tyler Fryberg battled rain & cold weather as he began the 3.5 mile run Photo by Brandi Montreuil
Along with sports, Tyler has an active interest in criminal justice. Last year he began taking criminal justice classes at Everett Community College. He contacted the Tulalip Police Department (TPD) and met with the Police Chief at the time, Jay Goss, and began volunteering in the office.
“It’s an interesting story,” laughs Tyler, “I came in and asked for a ride-along, I had a meeting with Chief Goss and I told him all about myself, and that because I have a disability I couldn’t get a real job, but he said I could volunteer instead.” At the TPD, Tyler gains extra experience in the criminal justice field by helping out around the office.
“Ty is very helpful,” says Shawn Edge of the Tulalip Police Department, “he’s always here at the busiest time of the day and he’s always here to help with the stuff that we can’t get to. “
Source: Indian Country Today Media Network, April 9, 2013
ESPN Sister Act: Jude, left, and Shoni Schimmel are ready for UConn.
The ball’s in your court, Lady Cardinals. Oh, it’s Sho-Time.
Last night the University of Louisville men’s team won the national championship, 82-76, over the Michigan Wolverines. Tonight, the Louisville ladies take their turn, meeting mighty UConn in New Orleans for the 2013 national title (8:30 p.m./ET, on ESPN). Only one other NCAA Division I school has won both the men’s and women’s national titles in the same year: UConn, in 2009. Coincidence? It’s cetainly added motivation.
The dynamite Cardinals, who are on an uprecedented run through the women’s tourney, came to the Big Dance as a middle-of-the-pack squad with explosive potential, but riddled with injuries. After taking care of business their first two games against Middle Tennessee State and Purdue, the Cards elminated the prohibitive favorite to win it all, Baylor, in a shocking Oh So Sweet Sixteen upset. Many are calling that victory the greatest upset in the history of the tournament. And that earned them an Elite Eight match-up with the Tennessee Volunteers, the all-time leader with eight national championships. Shoot. Score. Schimmel. Cards win, Cards win. Off to the Final Four, where a seed as low as the No. 5 Cards had been only once before–and their predecessor, Missouri State, lost, in 2001.
But these are the Louisville Cardinals: No longer party crashers, they’re most definitely the life of the party. And New Orleans, home to the Final Four, really knows how to throw a party.
Sunday, the U of L overcame a daunting 10-point halftime deficit with a stunning second-half surge to knock out the Cal Bears. And tonight they play for the national title. Boom goes the dynamite.
Oh what a night … Oh what a feeling! The Cards hope this is the scene–again-after another huge upset in the women’s tourney tonight. (The Associated Press/Alonzo Adams )
If you look at history and the “facts” on paper, UConn should win this game tonight.
The UConn Lady Huskies are a powerhouse, a perennial title contender and have been since coach Geno Auriemma arrived in Storrs, Connecticut, in 1985. Auriemma has never lost a national title game while helming the Huskies–and he’s brought them to seven finals. Win it all this year, and UConn matches Tennessee’s NCAA record of most championships: eight.
Big East rivals, UConn has dominated Louisville, winning their last 12 meetings. In their most recent game on January 15, the Cards were beaten 72-58. Further, the Huskies have proven they can beat the Cards in a title game: They did so in 2009, Louisville’s only other title game appearance. Only one time in history has one school won both the men’s and women’s titles in the same season: Yes, UConn, in 2009. And UConn has also won a title in New Orleans before: in 2004. This year they have four legitimate stars: Breanna Stewart, Stefanie Dolson, Bria Hartley and Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis. Shutting down four dominant players is a lot different than shutting down one, like the Cards did versus Baylor–even if their best player, Brittney Griner, is All-Universe. Freshman phenom Stewart has scored 82 points in four 2013 tournament games. Mosqueda-Lewis is averaging 19.5 points per game. Formidable.
But this is Cardinals basketball, 2013 NCAA tournament version. And they have the Schimmel sisters.
“We’re not done with what we’ve come out here to do and that’s win a national championship,” Shoni Schimmel said. “Why not go out with a bang?”
Oh, what a Big Bang that will be. It’s Sho-Time.
The Louisville Cardinals take on the UConn Huskies for the national title tonight at 8:30 p.m./ET. ESPN will televise the game, with ESPN3.com livestreaming the action; go to Espn.com/watchespn for further details. Before the game, at 6 p.m./ET, Discovery Fit & Health will air Off the Rez, the acclaimed documentary about the Schimmels. For more info, click here.
The Washington, D.C., NFL team is not the only one facing questions about using the name Redskins. High schools across the country are debating whether to continue using the controversial mascot. Capital News Service has identified 62 high schools across the country that have the Redskins as their mascot. Reporter Kelyn Soong takes an in-depth look at the issue that’s roiling in the court of public opinion, the U.S. legal system and, now, the U.S. Congress. For much more, including an interactive map, charts and statistics, click here.
Neshaminy High School in Bucks County, PA, is one of 62 U.S. high schools with the nickname Redskins.
Six months after Wiscasset High School became the Wolverines, the varsity boys basketball team showed up for a home game wearing t–shirts featuring the school’s old mascot.
When the players walked into the gym wearing white t‐shirts emblazoned with the word Redskins, the crowd gave the team ‒ and the t-shirts ‒ a standing ovation.
The game in January 2012 provided the citizens of Wiscasset, a small town on the Maine coast, one last chance to cheer for a controversial mascot that many considered an important link to the community’s past.
After months of contentious debate, the regional school board voted in January 2011 to drop the name, siding with those in the community who considered the moniker a racist anachronism over the majority of Wiscasset residents who favored tradition.
“Some felt like it was the last piece of the past they were hanging onto,” said Wiscasset High School principal Deb Taylor, a 1989 graduate of the school. “The power of the desire to go back to the past is very strong.”
Though the school has been officially represented by a red and black wolverine for nearly two years, some in the community have refused to let go of the Redskins.
THE REDSKINS DEBATE
As the debate over changing the name of the Washington Redskins intensifies in the nation’s capital, similar debates are dividing Wiscasset and other towns where fans of local high schools cheer for their own version of the Redskins.
Some of the schools that use the controversial name have been pulled into the national debate by the Washington Redskins, as part of the team’s defense of its continued use of a name that is often considered to be a racial slur.
In February, the Washington Redskins posted a series of stories on the team website highlighting four high schools that have Redskins mascots. The team quoted principals, coaches and athletic directors at those schools who said they were proud of the name Redskins.
“We did a little research. Some people might not have been inclined to do this research, but we went to a site, MaxPreps.com. We figured out there are 70 different high schools in the United States, in 25 states, that use the name Redskins,” Larry Michael, the team’s senior vice president and executive producer of media, said on “Redskins Nation,” the show he hosts on Comcast SportsNet.
A Capital News Service analysis of the MaxPreps high school mascot data found that the Washington, D.C., NFL team likely overstated the number of schools that use the name Redskins. The MaxPreps database included schools that have stopped using the mascot, have closed or were listed twice.
Capital News Service confirmed that 62 high schools in 22 states currently use the Redskins name, while 28 high schools in 18 states have dropped the mascot over the last 25 years. (More information on our findings).
The four schools highlighted on the Washington Redskins’ website do not accurately represent the level of debate over the mascot in communities across the country where the name Redskins is used, Capital News Service found.
At more than 40 percent of the schools, superintendents, principals, athletic directors, administrative assistants or other school representatives said that there have been local efforts to change the name. Eight more schools could soon join the 28 that have already dropped it.
A school board in upstate New York voted in March to retire the name Redskins at Cooperstown Central School at the end of this school year. In Washington state, Port Townsend High School is actively considering dropping the name. And in Michigan, the state Department of Civil Rights has filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education that could eventually force six Michigan schools called the Redskins to change their names.
At nearly 60 percent of schools that use the name, school representatives said there have been no local efforts to change it. Capital News Service also found three schools with a majority Native American student population that embrace the term Redskins, underscoring the divergent views held by Native Americans about the controversial name.
Tony Wyllie, a Washington Redskins senior vice president and the team’s chief spokesman, declined to comment on Capital News Service’s findings.
The decision to stop using Redskins happened with little controversy at some of the 28 schools that have dropped the name over the last 25 years. In others, it created bitter divisions.
At some schools, students pushed for the change, conflicting with older alumni who viewed abandoning Redskins as taking away a part of their history. At others, concerned citizens brought the issue to the attention of local officials.
‘PIECE OF THE PAST’
In Wiscasset, the push for the name change started with a protest from a local Native American group.
For decades, athletes at Wiscasset High School competed as the Redskins. In August 2010, the Maine Indian Tribal‐State Commission wrote to the local school board arguing it was time for a change.
“Essentially [the term Redskins] is a symbol of genocide. I can’t believe any school would want to have that association,” said John Dieffenbacher‐Krall, executive director of the commission.
After months of contentious debate, the school board voted in January 2011 to force Wiscasset High School to immediately stop using Redskins, leaving the school’s athletes without an identity.
As a result of the board’s decision to ban the name, students staged a walkout to show their support for keeping the name. Wiscasset alumni also forcefully opposed getting rid of the Redskins name.
“The decision was made [mid-school year] and the reaction was strong and very angry,” Taylor said.
Taylor said she was a proponent of the change, but did not make her opinion public because of her position as the school’s assistant principal at the time.
In March 2011, in response to community outcry, the school board voted to allow Wiscasset High School to use Redskins again through the end of the school year. The school adopted a new mascot ‒ a Wolverine ‒ to begin using at the start of the following school year.
But the controversy around the name change did not fade. Fans refused to chant “Go Wolverines” the way they used to chant “Go Redskins.” And the boys basketball team wore Redskins t‐shirts to a game, which Taylor said was one of several “sabotaging efforts… to reinvigorate the Redskins after it had been removed.”
And even now, some in the community are hoping to bring back the Redskins.
NATIVE AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES
The debate over whether sports teams should use the name Redskins has simmered for decades. The Washington Redskins and many of the 62 high schools that use the name say that it is meant to honor Native Americans, not to disparage them.
But many Native Americans disagree. The National Congress of American Indians, the largest national organization of Native American tribes, has denounced the use of any “American Indian sports nicknames and imagery” and has stated that such use “perpetuates stereotypes of American Indians that are very harmful.”
Yet not all Native Americans oppose the term Redskins. Capital News Service identified three majority Native American high schools that use it proudly, including Red Mesa High School in Arizona.
“Being from Native American culture, [the term] is not derogatory,” said Tommie Yazzie, superintendent of the school district that oversees Red Mesa High School. He identified himself as a “full-blooded Navajo.”
Red Mesa High School is located on a Navajo reservation, and 99.3 percent of its students are Native American, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
Yazzie said people on his reservation care about more pressing things than the use of the name Redskins.
“Education, public health ‒ those are the things we’re more concerned about, rather than whether a team name is appropriate,” he said.
Though he said it was acceptable for schools with majority Native American populations to use the name Redskins, he believes that non‐Native American schools should avoid using it.
“If you were to put this in an urban area where the population is basically white, unless there is a cultural connection, it would be inappropriate,” he said.
He was also troubled by the use of Native American war chants and gestures during sporting events, something that is common at other schools with Native American mascots.
“We don’t use those gestures and traditions. As Navajos we have respect for warfare. Warfare means taking a life. And when a young warrior goes out to battle, [the gestures and war chants] belong there,” he said. “When you come back into civilian life, you don’t take that back with you. You don’t use the same type of gestures and hollering and bring that back into a sporting event.”
‘HONORING THE INDIANS’
A Capital News Service analysis of National Center for Education Statistics data found that 50 of 62 schools that use the name Redskins are majority white, eight are majority Hispanic and one is majority black.
Thirty‒six schools told Capital News Service that the debate over the name has not reached their communities.
In Ohio, Indian Creek High School ‒ a majority white school – principal Steve Cowser said there has never been pressure to change the name Redskins, which the school adopted in 1993.
For him, the term represents honor and respect.
“I understand what happened in the past and why the word Redskins was given to them by the white man,” he said. “[But] in today’s society, when we use the name Redskins, we are honoring the Indians for their heroic efforts.”
At Ringgold High School, a majority black school in Louisiana, Principal Eric Carter said there has also been no community pressure to remove the name Redskins.
“If you show that your voice is in the majority then there would be some consideration,” Carter said, when asked how he would respond to a name change proposal.
PUSHING FOR A CHANGE
Though there are 62 high schools that use the name Redskins, the term has vanished from the collegiate landscape.
The last two colleges that used Redskins changed the name in the late 1990s. Miami University of Ohio changed from the Redskins to RedHawks in 1997 and the Southern Nazarene Crimson Storm dropped the name in 1999.
If the two universities had not changed their name by 2006, they would have been unable to play in the postseason under a NCAA policy adopted in 2005 that bans the use of Native American mascots by sports teams during its tournaments.
The postseason ban convinced colleges with mascots like Braves, Indians and Savages to become the Red Wolves, War Hawks, Mustangs or Savage Storm.
The policy made an exception for teams that have the consent of local Native American tribes like the Florida State University Seminoles.
At the high school level, there is no single national sports organization like the NCAA to pressure schools to abandon Native American mascots. But officials in a growing number of states are taking similar steps as the NCAA to force schools to change.
Wisconsin passed in 2010 the nation’s first state law banning public schools from using Native American names, mascots and logos. It left exceptions for schools that had the approval of local Native American tribes.
In 2012, the Oregon State Board of Education issued a ruling banning all Native American team names, mascots and logos. Affected schools must comply by 2017 or risk losing state funding.
Capital News Service was unable to find any teams that use the Redskins name in Wisconsin and Oregon. But six high schools in Michigan called the Redskins could soon be forced to change their names because of legal action by the state Department of Civil Rights.
The agency filed a complaint in February with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, asking the federal agency to issue an order prohibiting the use of “American Indian mascots, names, nicknames, slogans, chants and/or imagery” by the state’s schools.
The complaint named the six Michigan schools that use the Redskins along with 29 others that have Native American mascots. It also described the term Redskins as a “racial slur…[that] carries particularly negative connotations that accentuate the negative impact of associated stereotypes.”
The complaint stated that using Native American names and imagery, “creates a hostile environment and denies equal rights to all current and future American Indian students.”
There is little community support for dropping Redskins at Saranac High School, one of the six Michigan high schools with the name listed in the complaint, said Maury Geiger, superintendent of Saranac Community Schools.
“The [Michigan Department of Civil Rights] complaint was not filed because of a complaint from someone in Michigan,” he said. “That says something to me, that [the name Redskins] has been acceptable within our school and community.”
Over the last two decades, state education officials and state Native American commissions in Michigan, New Hampshire, New York, Nebraska and Maryland have passed resolutions strongly encouraging high schools to drop Native American mascots.
Last year, the Washington State Board of Education approved a resolution that urged its school districts to discontinue the use of Native American mascots. The resolution cited a 2005 American Psychological Association study that found that the use of Native American mascots, symbols and images have a negative effect on students by perpetuating misconceptions about Native American culture.
The Washington state resolution does not force schools to drop the names, leaving it to local officials to make a decision on their own.
AN UPCOMING VOTE
Andrew Sheldon, a former Washington, D.C., resident, is trying to get his local high school in Port Townsend, Washington, to drop the name Redskins.
When he moved to the state in 1996, he was disheartened to learn that Port Townsend High School had the same mascot as the professional team in his former city.
“It’s pretty much a civil rights issue. I think the benefit of the doubt should go to [people] that are offended by the word,” Sheldon said.
Last year, Sheldon sent a letter asking the school board to ban the name, resurrecting an issue that has lingered in the community since the early 1990s. His request prompted the school board to form a committee to discuss the issue. It includes school board members, alumni and members of local Native American tribes. The committee does not include students.
T.J. Greene, the chairman of the nearby Makah Tribal Council, said the tribe does not have an official position on the issue. “As a whole we wouldn’t say the name needs to be changed,” he said.
The board will decide whether to change the name in June, based on recommendations from the committee. Sheldon said he would pull his children out of the school system if they vote to keep it.
The issue has been voted on three times in the last 20 years by Port Townsend High School students, with the most recent vote in 2000.
The students elected to keep the name all three times.
This year, the decision will not be put to students, although Port Townsend High School athletic director Patrick Kane said they are being consulted.
Putting it to a vote in 2000 “caused a lot of tension in the school… and a lot of anxiety, stress and pressure on those on the committee,” he said.
STUDENTS INITIATE CHANGE
At Port Townsend, students were instrumental in keeping in place a name that had represented the school since the 1920s.
But at Cooperstown Central School in New York it was a small group of high school students that led the charge to retire the name Redskins this year. In the early 1980s and again in 2001, the school considered changing the name, but decided to keep it.
The students voted to change the name in February, pushing the local school board to make a decision on whether or not to drop it. The board held public forums to discuss the issue.
Some Cooperstown alumni lobbied the school board to keep the name, pointing to the tradition and history the name evoked, superintendent C.J. Hebert said.
But the Oneida Indian Nation, located near Cooperstown, argued that the name is offensive. As a gesture of goodwill, they offered to help pay for new team jerseys.
“These wonderful kids decided to discontinue the offensive name to our people. We just thought it was a courageous decision,” said Oneida Indian Nation representative Ray Halbritter.
The school board voted in March to retire the name by the end of the school year, making this the last season Cooperstown athletes will take the field as the Redskins.
School officials said they do not yet know how they will a choose a new mascot to replace the one that has represented Cooperstown Central School since the 1920s.
AN EASY TRANSITION
It took Sanford High School in Maine a month to choose a new mascot ‒ the Spartans ‒ after deciding in May 2012 to drop the Redskins.
The school’s civil rights team ‒ which consists of a faculty advisor and a core of 10 to 15 students ‒ recommended to the school board in spring 2011 that the name be dropped. And just as it had in Wiscasset, the Maine Indian Tribal-State Commission advocated for the change.
School leaders voted in May 2012 to officially retire the Redskins. But even before the vote, the school had already stopped using the Redskins logo on their jerseys, replacing it with an S for Sanford.
The students were anxious to adopt a mascot they could display proudly. “The joke was we were really just a big S,” principal Jed Petsinger said.
Students chose the Spartans over the Cardinals, Pride and Stampede.
“The transition has been really easy,” said junior Shae Horrigan, a school board student representative and a member of the cross country team. “It’s fun, [the new mascot] is everywhere now.”
Petsinger said he was impressed by how the community reached a consensus on the name change through civil discussion, in contrast to the events in Wiscasset.
“You can’t take away the history of the school… and [those in support of keeping the Redskins] knew it was time to have a [new] mascot for all the students to rally around,” he said.
A POTENTIAL RETURN
In Wiscasset, the debate over the Redskins has not subsided, even though a year has passed since the introduction of a new mascot. Opponents of the name change are still bitter about the decision to replace the name Redskins with Wolverines.
Wiscasset High School is in the process of withdrawing from the school district that forced the name change. School officials said they want to move because of a loss of school control over the curriculum and funding issues, not because of the name change.
But if the withdrawal is successful, principal Deb Taylor said there is a chance the Redskins mascot could return.
“There is speculation that if we were to withdraw, there would be grassroots efforts to restore the Redskins mascot,” she said. “It is very likely the issue arises again.”
Capital News Service reporters Sean Henderson, Angela Wong, Eric Morrow, Krystal Nancoo-Russell, Allison Goldstein and Rashee Raj Kumar contributed to this report.Capital News Service is a student-powered news organization run by the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland. Learn more here.
Groups from Seattle and Sacramento will be in New York City on Wednesday to discuss their plans for the Kings. Each group will present its plan to a combined NBA relocation and finance committee.
By Rob Condotta, The Seattle Times
Investor Chris Hansen leads the Seattle contingent.
NEW YORK — In a Manhattan hotel on Wednesday, the months-long battle over the fate of the Sacramento Kings will turn into a daylong debate.
It looms as the most critical date yet in this saga. Representatives of a Seattle group hoping to buy the Kings and move them to Seattle and a Sacramento contingent attempting to keep the team there will take turns making their cases to a combined NBA relocation and finance committee.
Each side will present its plan, and likely poke holes in the other city’s efforts. The relocation/finance committee will talk afterward, then send a recommendation to the NBA’s Board of Governors. The board will cast a final vote on the matter when it meets in New York April 18-19.
“This is one of the biggest days of my life and a seminal moment for our city,” wrote Chris Hansen, who will lead the Seattle contingent, in a note on sonicsarena.com Tuesday afternoon.
Hansen also wrote that 44,000 Sonics fans put their names on a priority ticket waitlist established three weeks ago, including 32,000 in the first 24 hours. He said 268 put their names on a list for suites, and 983 businesses expressed interest in sponsorship opportunities.
Those figures will be part of Seattle’s presentation by a group that will include Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, mayor Mike McGinn and King County executive Dow Constantine.
“This is indeed a fairly important presentation,” McGinn said Tuesday in New York.
Sacramento’s presentation will be led by Mayor Kevin Johnson as well as several members of the ownership group he has assembled in an attempt to keep the team. The Kings’ franchise will be represented by members of the current controlling owners, the Maloof family.
The Maloofs reached a deal to sell the team to the Hansen/Ballmer group in January. Sales of NBA teams, however, must be approved by the NBA Board of Governors. And since news of the sale, Johnson has led a feverish attempt to assemble an ownership group and arena plan, hoping to convince the NBA to disallow the sale of the Kings and force them to stay in Sacramento.
The two committees that will hear the presentations were merged for the purposes of this topic because it involves both a sale and a request for relocation (sales require 75 percent owner approval, relocation 50 percent).
Among the members of the committee are Clay Bennett, who bought the Sonics in 2006 and moved them to Oklahoma City in 2008. Bennett, in fact, is head of the relocation committee. But the fact the committees have been merged, sources said, lessens Bennett’s role.
Michael McCann, a legal analyst for NBA-TV, said the NBA is not like the NFL, where powerful individual owners can often step in and sway a decision. Instead, “the NBA really is run through David Stern.” McCann said if history is any guide, Stern will try to build a consensus.
Hansen’s presentation is expected to include a comparison of the arena deals of the cities, emphasizing that Seattle’s is further along. Hansen and city and county officials pieced together a $490 million arena deal last fall, including a $290 million contribution from Hansen.
Hansen also is expected to sell the fact that Seattle is a larger TV market (12th to Sacramento’s 20th) and emphasize the prospect for a lucrative regional cable television package. The NBA’s national TV deals expire following the 2015-16 season.
“I think that would be a big deal,” McCann said of the TV market advantage for Seattle. “The NBA wants to see teams able to enter into as lucrative as possible television contracts because that also puts other teams in a situation where they should be able to get more in their local TV deals.”
Another Seattle selling point is its larger corporate base, including eight Fortune 500 companies. There are none in Sacramento.
Constantine said he thinks the proposal Seattle will present is “very difficult to argue with … there are a lot of things going in our favor.”
A hearing in the lawsuit arguing that the arena deal violates Seattle Initiative 91 is set for April 12. That suit asks the court to invalidate the agreement with Hansen to build a new arena with up to $200 million in public funds because the deal doesn’t ensure an adequate financial return to the city, as required by the initiative.
Another legal challenge was rejected in February, but lawyers for the longshore workers union have filed an appeal and continue to argue that an environmental review of the Sodo site should have been completed before the arena agreements were signed.
The Longshore workers have argued that the Sodo location will add to congestion and threaten operations at nearby Port of Seattle shipping terminals. Seattle attorney Peter Goldman, who represents the longshore workers, said the two legal challenges must be considered by the NBA in weighing the strength of Seattle’s arena deal.
“The issues raised by these lawsuits contrast markedly with what’s being said in New York right now about the Sodo arena deal being in the bag,” Goldman said.
McGinn and Constantine said they don’t see the lawsuit or the appeal by the longshore workers as insurmountable problems.
Sacramento’s pitch might focus on loyalty and emotion. Johnson has said repeatedly that the city has done everything it has been asked to do by the NBA and that it would be “unprecedented” for the NBA not to reward the city for its efforts.
Also on Sacramento’s side could be the fact that its arena proposal features more public financing — an estimated $258 million of its $447 million total. The NBA likes the precedent of owners getting as much help as possible for arenas, McCann said.
Sacramento also is expected to unveil a new bid for the team. An offer made in March was deemed by Stern not to be worthy of consideration.
McCann said the process could help Seattle. While the owners might be comparing the cities, they will technically vote on just the issues of approving the sale of the team to the Hansen group and its relocation to Seattle.
“The board is voting on one offer, which has been accepted by the Maloofs, and it’s the Hansen offer,” McCann said. “I think that can be an underrated point in this. They have to reject the Hansen offer to get to the point where the Maloofs will consider an alternative offer. And then it is on what grounds do they reject the Hansen and Ballmer offer?”
The NBA rarely disapproves sales. One notable exception came in 1994 when the NBA denied a sale of the Minnesota Timberwolves to a group that was proposing to move the team to New Orleans. Then, however, there were concerns about the financial backing of the ownership group (which proved well-founded when the group declared bankruptcy a year later).
The fact each side appears willing to pay the most ever for an NBA team — that has a 27-47 record — has likely caught the league off-guard, McCann said.
“I think if they were honest, they would say they are a bit surprised there is so much money going toward the Kings,” he said.
McCann said he thinks there could be discussion of expansion coming from these meetings, though Stern has insisted that’s not an option.
