Re: Illinois Illini mascot to make final appearance tonight
I grew up cheering for the Miami (Ohio) Redskins and later went to that university, and after that was a play-by-play announcer for them.
the Miami tribe in Oklahoma changed their minds about their official 'approval' of the nickname and decided that they were kind of bothered by it.
In 1997 they changed the nickname to RedHawks amidst much contraversy amongst the sports-fans and athletics-boosters.
But I think it was about time.
They also got rid of the Chief Miami mascot guy who would do his Miami Indian dance in the end-zone. Somewhat similar to the Illini mascot I am guessing.
Lots of fans pulled their contributions or cancelled their season-tickets.
Time helped get a lot of those fans back but you would still hear some, "GO REDSKINS!!" really loud from some old-school guy in the stands.
Wally Szczerbiak leading the team to the Sweet 16 in 99 and then Ben Roethlesberger leading Miami to a conference championship, bowl-win and 13-1 record in 2003 helped win back even more of those fans.
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