Man, the Chief's days are numbered. It's not so much a question of if he leaves as when and how he leaves.

Ironically, Cantor's leaving has probably only hastened his departure. Why? 'Cuz the Chief will be retired once it starts impacting the University where it really counts - in either actual money, actual prestige, or actual BigWig hiring.

Complaints about the News-Gazette notwithstanding, a few years ago they did a large feature story about schools which had mascot changes away from Indian images, and they found (to their surprise) that alumni donations did NOT fall - they increased by the same amount they would have been expected to anyway. Sure, guys still come to Stanford and Miami games yelling for the old mascots, but they are a minor footnote. Apparently, according to the News Gazette, those who actually donate the big sums of cold, hard, ca$h do it for reasons largely unrelated to the mascot (though they may be related to the sports program) and those other reasons don't really change. People still want their names on buildings, after all.

Apart from any potential chancellor's feelings on the Chief issue, the fact is it's a festering controversy which not many aspiring administrative types are going to be happy to take on. That, plus the fact that quite a few big name schools have upper level management positions (including those equivalent to Chancellor/President) open right now, is going to make the University of Illinois with this issue a hard sell.

So I suppose you could say I'm with the "retire it with honor" crowd. I realize that those who started it meant well, but I do think its time has passed. It's anachronistic. Even the Trustees in support of the Chief who were interviewed by the New York Times admitted that once you leave a rather small circle surrounding Champaign-Urbana, it's rather hard to explain just why it is people want to keep it. I think painting all those who support the Chief as automatically hating and racist is a bit harsh - I think for a lot of people they really do mean well, but maybe aren't seeing how it appears from the other, or out, side. And of course it's probably human for people to resent the idea of being forced to change.

That said, the most cringeworthy part of the entire tradition, to me, are the hoops we're jumping through now to insist that the Chief isn't a mascot, and that he's somehow historically educational or teaching people about those who use to live (or hunt, really) here before. Come on, already. We all know the costume isn't remotely accurate (it's Lakota, as I recall, and they ain't from Illinois) and the dance isn't either. We're pretty much doing the equivalent of taking a French dude, dressing him up in lederhosen, making him dance the hora, and then waxing eloquent about how this all educates the masses about the wonders of Italian culture. THAT, more than anything else, makes us all collectively look stupid.

Anyone who's been around a while knows that the Chief DID use to sign autographs and appear at supermarket openings and the like. And he wasn't always the austere round front face, and he used to appear on toilet paper and all that.

But maybe more than anything - what's the fun in an "honored symbol"? I mean, it's like church at halftime, with all the silence and the honoring and the weepy eyed old guys... it's just awkward. The Chief can't even go to away games. Other schools, they have real mascots, they can make fun of the mascot, they can laugh, they can engage in banter with the other school's mascot, everyone is laughing, everyone is pumped, it's just more... fun. You KNOW that the school would unite around whatever mascot we come up with, because that's the nature of sporting events. Let's get a real mascot.

So I say, we should retire the Chief with honor. He was meant to honor, I do think people meant well, we should have a statue, we should have a collection of items about the entire tradition, how it started, what it means and meant to a lot of people, and we should have him walk honorably out of the spotlight, and move into a new era.