Illinois Still on the Offensive

The good news is that enough critical mass has formed to have the fake Indian eradicated.

Since the NCAA ruled last year that the university could not host postseason events as long as it uses the Chief, calling it a "hostile and abusive" mascot, Illinois has had to send two of its playoff teams packing. And with this year's men's basketball team possibly headed to the NIT, which awards home sites to profitable schools, the athletic department could be out thousands of dollars in postseason cash -- cash that pays for non-revenue-generating sports. When you can't host championship events, it also makes it that much harder to attract the best kids and coaches.

Keeping a white kid in war paint around used to be just insensitive. Now it's costing Illinois money and its reputation.

The student newspaper called for the Chief's retirement last week. And the Oglala Sioux Nation recently requested the return of regalia sold to the school 25 years ago.

Most observers believe the Board of Trustees will in the next three months finally give the Chief his gold watch after 80 years of service.

"The board has no backbone," said John Gadau, a Champaign lawyer and member of the Honor the Chief Society who has spent thousands of dollars to retain the mascot. "The rumor is, they've already got another name picked out for Illinois. We'll be the Spineless Chickens."

Gadau represents the other side of the debate. I figured I would call him because Rep. Tim Johnson and former speaker Dennis Hastert, two Illinois Republicans who supported a bill that would keep the NCAA out of the Illini's business, are no longer in position to advance the measure now that Democrats have a majority in Congress. Another supporter, Illinois House Republican leader Tom Cross, has taken down a Save-the-Chief petition on his Web site.

I asked Gadau how he felt about the Oglala Sioux tribe requesting the regalia be returned.

"If you want to get into cliches, the first thing that comes to my mind is Indian giver," Gadau actually said. "We bought it. It's ours."

Gadau added: "The real problem we have in Illinois is we don't have a tribe to buy off. Other tribes killed off the Illini. Look at Florida State. They buy the Seminoles off and it's okay for a white kid to throw a flaming spear in the ground."

He's right about that. The hypocrisy on this issue prevents an across-the-board abolition of Indian mascots. You buy one tribe's silence, and it's okay to reject the claims of insensitivity by another.

Still, Chief Illiniwek will be dead soon, and that will be a historic moment. For people such as Charlene Teters, who started holding up a handmade placard outside the football stadium that read, "American Indians are people, not mascots," some 20 years ago at Illinois. And for people such as Genevieve Tenoso, still an Illinois student and the great-great granddaughter of Sitting Bull, whom I met three years ago while researching a story on the Chief.

Tenoso told me then about running into a group of students demonstrating on behalf of the chief under the banner, "The Illini Nation."

"I think I said, 'Look, now they've got their own tribe.' And a guy told me if I didn't shut up he was going to pop me in the lip."

You hear a seventh-generation descendant of the legendary Hunkpapa leader tell you that story, and you think about all the degradation their ancestors have suffered, and it makes you want to pop that kid in the lip.