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For all the excitement about next Tuesday's Rose Bowl game between our Illini and those suddenly hateable USC Trojans, it has one major downside: Everybody's talking about the damned Chief again. More »
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Last night, as tons of teary-eyed Central Illinoisians will tell you this morning, was the final dance of Chief Illiniwek, the skipping, painted white-guy-dressed-up-as-Injun who has "performed" at halftime of our alma mater's sporting events for the last 80 years or so. Like most alums — or at least the ones who have a hard time emotionally identifying ourselves with a college kid in war paint, or any mascot, really — we're both kind of sad that a symbol of our youth won't be around anymore and pleased that the whole "debate" will finally end and we can get on with our lives. Can't we just be the Wildcats like any other university? It would be nice to have a dumb, innocuous mascot that nobody thinks or cares about. More »
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As an old lifer at the Daily Illini, no story was less fun to talk about than Chief Illiniwek. We once had our own personal take on the embattled "symbol" of the University of Illinois, but we don't even remember what it was anymore: It was talked about every day, in the most banal and "emotional" terms, so much that we just couldn't stand it anymore. We wanted the Chief to go away just so people would stop talking about it. More »
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As graduates of the University of Illinois at its endless debates about the merits/racism of its Chief Illiniwek, we will confess complete exhuastion when it comes to Native American mascots/symbols. We don't really care what they do, we just want them to do it and stop talking about it. Sorry. It's a sore spot. More »
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