Look Back At The University Of North Dakota’s ALMOST Nicknames

Do you remember the controversy surrounding the changing of the University of North Dakota nickname? 

I won't even get into all of the details that eventually led to the changing of the iconic nickname and logo "Fighting Sioux".  As a former student from UND, and living in Grand Forks during the process of the name change, all I can say is that it became exhausting.

As much as I loved the name and logo, I found myself becoming jaded about the whole situation.  I think it was safe to say that over 90% of the population of North Dakota wanted to keep the nickname, including the approval of one of the two native tribes in the state (Spirit Lake).

The problem was that the NCAA bullied UND into changing the name unless they could get the approval of the other tribe in the state.  Even though numerous polls for the people of that tribe (Standing Rock) were in favor of keeping the name, UND officials could never get tribal officials to vote on the nickname approval.   Still a head-scratcher to this day.

What I'm wondering though, do you remember the 4 other nicknames that we're in the running to be UND's nickname?

One of those new nickname choices was very dear to me, in fact, I'm the one who submitted the name.

The NEW nickname I proposed for the University of North Dakota was the "North Stars".

I thought it had a nice ring to it, plus it paid homage to my favorite beloved pro hockey team, the Minnesota North Stars who left town to move to Dallas.  Other people in Grand Forks must have agreed with me because of how high the voting went.

The other four nickname choices included "The Fighting Hawks", "NoDaks", "Sundogs", and "Roughriders".

According to the University of North Dakota, the final voting totals were as follows:

When the dust finally settled there was a total of 27,378 votes registered.

Fighting Hawks: 15,670 votes (57.24 percent)
Roughriders: 11,708 votes (42.76 percent)

Nodaks finished 3rd.  I'm still crying about voting fraud to this day. Ha!  I would still prefer "North Stars" over "Hawks".  I'm also not a fan of the USPS-like logo.  At least we got to keep the "Fighting" part.