Crusaders Retired

[valpotx]

If people keep citing the survey as one of the main reasons that mascot was changed then VU should release the results. Seems like a good way to be transparent and build up goodwill. 

In the alternative, maybe the media can find someone to leak a copy of the results to them.

If the SBP, who was on the video, hasn't seen the results, I highly doubt those results are getting leaked.

Honestly, I'm so over this survey. What I'd be focused on is who decided in 2018 to tell athletics to dial back using it on the website. Where did that directive come from? Because that came before all the resolutions, petitions and task forces.

I've got one more bonus episode on this coming next week.

You should get some of the former Crusader mascot actors/cheerleaders to chime in.  I remember the guy that shared the mascot for a few years during our time on campus, and Jason took pride in being the Little Caesar's guy in a suit of armor

[Pgmado]

If people keep citing the survey as one of the main reasons that mascot was changed then VU should release the results. Seems like a good way to be transparent and build up goodwill. 

In the alternative, maybe the media can find someone to leak a copy of the results to them.

If the SBP, who was on the video, hasn't seen the results, I highly doubt those results are getting leaked.

Honestly, I'm so over this survey. What I'd be focused on is who decided in 2018 to tell athletics to dial back using it on the website. Where did that directive come from? Because that came before all the resolutions, petitions and task forces.

I've got one more bonus episode on this coming next week.

You should get some of the former Crusader mascot actors/cheerleaders to chime in.  I remember the guy that shared the mascot for a few years during our time on campus, and Jason took pride in being the Little Caesar's guy in a suit of armor

That's coming.

[humbleopinion]

Can we move on?

The decision has been made.

Some on the forum approve of the decision; some are insulted and are angry about it; some really don't care about the mascot, but are bothered by the process; and others just don't care.

After twelve pages, it seems that no one's mind is going to change, and the conversation is devolving into personal attacks. When I log on to the forum I would like to read about Valpo basketball.

Is there a game tomorrow?

[valpopal]

Can we move on?

The decision has been made.

Some on the forum approve of the decision; some are insulted and are angry about it; some really don't care about the mascot, but are bothered by the process; and others just don't care.

After twelve pages, it seems that no one's mind is going to change, and the conversation is devolving into personal attacks. When I log on to the forum I would like to read about Valpo basketball.

Is there a game tomorrow?

This is rich from someone who has made a number of anti-Crusader posts with a couple including insults and who claims everyone he knows—spanning "six decades of alums"—supports the change except for those few on this forum who are "people who want to cling to the Crusader."

[humbleopinion]

I certainly apologize if anyone felt insulted -- it certainly wasn't my intent.

I guess you missed my point about the six decades.  I wanted to demonstrate how polarized our social circles have become and the social circle that this forum provides is the one that offers viewpoints other than the alumni whom I know.

[wh]

Woke At Last: Indiana's Valparaiso University Cancels Crusader Nickname and Mascot

BY ROBERT SPENCER FEB 13, 2021 3:51 PM ET

"...It is undeniable that the Crusaders committed many atrocities. So did their jihadi opponents. But in the main, the Crusader endeavor was not an exercise in imperialism or racism, but an attempt to protect Christians from jihad attacks.

So why shouldn't Valparaiso University have a Crusader mascot and take pride in its own culture and heritage? Because that culture is spent, and weak, and confused, and anxious to appease a much more confident alternative culture that regards the Crusades as an affront.

The West continues its cultural self-abnegation in the face of the chimera of "Islamophobia" — a propaganda neologism designed to make people ashamed of defending themselves and their homeland against a newly aggressive Islamic jihad..."

https://pjmedia.com/culture/robert-spencer/2021/02/13/woke-at-last-indianas-valparaiso-university-cancels-crusader-nickname-and-mascot-n1425449

[may know]

humbleopinion's last 9 posts on this site are in this thread.

If ending discussion is so important (a topic you have the ability and option not to view), the solution would be to generate basketball discussion yourself instead of telling others what they can or can't talk about. 

[valpotx]

With all due respect to humbleopinion, you don't have to read this thread.  Tied to the political thread section on this forum, I only click on the thread to get it off the unread/highlighted status, similar to what I do with unopened emails in my work inbox each day, as I hate seeing unopened items .  I don't actually look at the content in those threads, which is the same choice you have on this topic.  It isn't simply, "it's done, get over it."  Feel free to take your ball and go home with it, but there are plenty of others left for the rest of us to continue playing.

[usc4valpo]

Can we upgrade facilities now? It's well overdue.

[VALPO LI]

Jumped on the Valpo website just now and I wanted to know how "Life at Valpo" was going.  Clicked on the link and it brought me to a page where I could click on "Athletics" Now what shocked me the most was not that I counted the word Crusader 3 times and the world Crusaderette 6 times on this web page but rather a picture of JFL going to the hoop.
C'MON MAN!!!!!
It's 2021 and we are Crusaderless and JFL does not play for Valpo anymore!!!
BTW...check our the great pic on the same page of our mens soccer team in action.

https://www.valpo.edu/life-at-valpo/

[valpopal]

Jumped on the Valpo website just now and I wanted to know how "Life at Valpo" was going.  Clicked on the link and it brought me to a page where I could click on "Athletics" Now what shocked me the most was not that I counted the word Crusader 3 times and the world Crusaderette 6 times on this web page but rather a picture of JFL going to the hoop.
C'MON MAN!!!!!
It's 2021 and we are Crusaderless and JFL does not play for Valpo anymore!!!
BTW...check our the great pic on the same page of our mens soccer team in action.

https://www.valpo.edu/life-at-valpo/

...and under "Life at Valpo" there is a wonderful image of a fantastic crowd in a deliriously happy and packed ARC...including a fanatic student section...and the full pep band...watching a terrific winning team...on television in a national postseason tournament...and nobody is wearing a mask...and no one is worried about shouting "Go Crusaders"...and the great inflatable Crusader is gazing down upon it all as if in approval, unaware of its fate...and I can just about make myself out, likely smiling, beside other Crusader fans in the picture...and I'm recalling the sensational atmosphere...and I'm already feeling nostalgia on so many fronts...and I'm wondering what if the golden age of VU basketball has passed...and frustrated by all this, I'm reminded of the famous last line of The Great Gatsby: "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past"...and I swear, though I know exactly which university administrator to tell of its presence for deletion, I'm not informing anyone at the university about this photo lingering on the website...and yet I'm dismayed about the inevitability of its eventual removal...and I'm just hoping the marvelous moment captured in this image on the page stays in place as long as possible! 

[vuny98]

Jumped on the Valpo website just now and I wanted to know how "Life at Valpo" was going.  Clicked on the link and it brought me to a page where I could click on "Athletics" Now what shocked me the most was not that I counted the word Crusader 3 times and the world Crusaderette 6 times on this web page but rather a picture of JFL going to the hoop. C'MON MAN!!!!! It's 2021 and we are Crusaderless and JFL does not play for Valpo anymore!!! BTW...check our the great pic on the same page of our mens soccer team in action. https://www.valpo.edu/life-at-valpo/

...and under "Life at Valpo" there is a wonderful image of a fantastic crowd in a deliriously happy and packed ARC...including a fanatic student section...and the full pep band...watching a terrific winning team...on television in a national postseason tournament...and nobody is wearing a mask...and no one is worried about shouting "Go Crusaders"...and the great inflatable Crusader is gazing down upon it all as if in approval, unaware of its fate...and I can just about make myself out, likely smiling, beside other Crusader fans in the picture...and I'm recalling the sensational atmosphere...and I'm already feeling nostalgia on so many fronts...and I'm wondering what if the golden age of VU basketball has passed...and frustrated by all this, I'm reminded of the famous last line of The Great Gatsby: "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past"...and I swear, though I know exactly which university administrator to tell of its presence for deletion, I'm not informing anyone at the university about this photo lingering on the website...and yet I'm dismayed about the inevitability of its eventual removal...and I'm just hoping the marvelous moment captured in this image on the page stays in place as long as possible! 

It actual brings up a good point... at what point do we start "burning the books"... removing all the pictures, past references to the Crusader. If I remember correctly, there are some great pictures in the ARC and I'm sure a lot of them have the Crusader name or imagery in them. Do those get taken down? And I'm not trying to be sarcastic here, seriously, in the name of political correctness do we get to retain our history or does it get scrubbed so only the approved parts remain?

[JD24]

IMO, Valpo's student diversity is minimally acceptable. That said, Valpo's faculty racial mix is deplorable, at best. Black and Hispanic professors are so underrepresented (1.7% and 2.1%, respectively) that the numbers look like what I would have expected 30 or 40 years ago. How ironic that the very people championing the cause about a mascot name under the banner of religious sensitivity are in fact poster children for "white privilege." Oh, and let me not forget to include the all-caring white male campus reverend that's been chirping about this. These people should be a living example of workplace diversity. They should set the tone and lead the charge on hiring diversity. The number of minority staff members should be well above legally mandated levels in order to show true commitment to the cause of organizational diversity. They should be that "beacon light that guides freedom loving people everywhere." But they're not. They're just run-of-the-mill workplace complainers, cherry-picking a minutiae social justice cause while daily benefiting from social injustice on an infinitely larger scale. BTW I would love to know the racial demographics of the neighborhoods where these social justice warriors live and their children attend school. I'll guarantee they have white privilege written all over them.

Well said.

[JD24]

you can't just say 13% of the US is black, so you should have 13%+ students of that background. 

If you can't "just say" and you're this well educated analyzer of comparative statistics, then why was it you that brought up the percentage relationship in the first place? 

In other words, 7% of the student body is pretty close to 13% of the overall population, even though it's really about 50% less if you roll out about 5 points of justification for the difference. Then it is spot on.

If you brought it up to explain why, of all of the college campuses I have at least visited, Valparaiso is the least diverse I've seen and in particular to people of color, I'm not sure your did a particularly good job.

To bring the point full circle...I have my doubts the nickname and mascot have nearly anything to do with the lack of diversity and, if the goal is to make the campus more diverse that there are likely other better options to do so. I'm not sure how much of a goal that really is.

[bbtds]

Jumped on the Valpo website just now and I wanted to know how "Life at Valpo" was going.  Clicked on the link and it brought me to a page where I could click on "Athletics" Now what shocked me the most was not that I counted the word Crusader 3 times and the world Crusaderette 6 times on this web page but rather a picture of JFL going to the hoop.
C'MON MAN!!!!!
It's 2021 and we are Crusaderless and JFL does not play for Valpo anymore!!!
BTW...check our the great pic on the same page of our mens soccer team in action.

https://www.valpo.edu/life-at-valpo/

Yes, but there is someone in a StL Cardinals cap and no one in Cubs or Brewers cap. 

[vu84v2]

IMO, Valpo's student diversity is minimally acceptable. That said, Valpo's faculty racial mix is deplorable, at best. Black and Hispanic professors are so underrepresented (1.7% and 2.1%, respectively) that the numbers look like what I would have expected 30 or 40 years ago. How ironic that the very people championing the cause about a mascot name under the banner of religious sensitivity are in fact poster children for "white privilege." Oh, and let me not forget to include the all-caring white male campus reverend that's been chirping about this. These people should be a living example of workplace diversity. They should set the tone and lead the charge on hiring diversity. The number of minority staff members should be well above legally mandated levels in order to show true commitment to the cause of organizational diversity. They should be that "beacon light that guides freedom loving people everywhere." But they're not. They're just run-of-the-mill workplace complainers, cherry-picking a minutiae social justice cause while daily benefiting from social injustice on an infinitely larger scale. BTW I would love to know the racial demographics of the neighborhoods where these social justice warriors live and their children attend school. I'll guarantee they have white privilege written all over them.

Well said.

One needs to be careful when looking at racial demographics of faculty. A university is made up of many divisions (of course, colleges - plus the administration) who each face their own labor market and each make their own hiring decisions. In many disciplines, including engineering and all of the business disciplines, there are extremely few black and hispanic professors or PhD students. Thus, when there is an opening it is virtually impossible to hire one (and, of course, they are in extremely high demand). For the argument made above you really have to look at the black and hispanic professors within the relevant college (which, in this case, is probably Arts and Sciences).

Note that if we (society) really wanted to solve racial disparity in professional fields, we need to create a pipeline of blacks and hispanics in the professional fields. And we need to recognize that the outcomes from this pipeline (e.g., more black and hispanic faculty) will not be seen for many years. Nobody wants to hear that, but the reality is that (for example) an engineering professor needs four years of undergraduate work, probably several years working outside of academia, and five years of PhD work.

The problems are real, but the real solutions are far more complex and take substantial time, attention and financial resources to solve. I am/was not a big fan of the Crusader, but I also think that some people look for "quick wins" to feel good about themselves or be able to express what they accomplished  - but these quick wins do little to solve the real problems.

[valpotx]

you can't just say 13% of the US is black, so you should have 13%+ students of that background. 

If you can't "just say" and you're this well educated analyzer of comparative statistics, then why was it you that brought up the percentage relationship in the first place? 

In other words, 7% of the student body is pretty close to 13% of the overall population, even though it's really about 50% less if you roll out about 5 points of justification for the difference. Then it is spot on.

If you brought it up to explain why, of all of the college campuses I have at least visited, Valparaiso is the least diverse I've seen and in particular to people of color, I'm not sure your did a particularly good job.

To bring the point full circle...I have my doubts the nickname and mascot have nearly anything to do with the lack of diversity and, if the goal is to make the campus more diverse that there are likely other better options to do so. I'm not sure how much of a goal that really is.

Not an expert in comparative statistics, but I am an expert as it relates to D&I initiatives in company hiring, and how that filters down to the university level, as well.  My points all stand, past the initial % comparison that you have decided to solely focus.  My further clarifications were part of my original view/assertion, which to be fair to you, I did not decide to type out in full in my first comment, as to the reasons why I mentioned the % difference being negligible, when you look at the actual funnel of available talent.

[bbtds]

VALPO VICTORY BELLS


Isn't that the longest standing tradition at VU and has nothing to do with the Crusader former mascot.







USA! USA! USAders!

[crusader05]

I will say that the Students as a whole LOVE the victory bell and it's something that means something to Athletes but also means something to students. They ring it when they graduate and when they get internships and do other achievements and they take pictures outside of it all the time.

You could do the Valpo Victory and "fly the Vs" and embrace a pretty fun campus tradition

[wh]

Honestly, I'm so over this survey. What I'd be focused on is who decided in 2018 to tell athletics to dial back using it on the website. Where did that directive come from? Because that came before all the resolutions, petitions and task forces.

I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I think you're suggesting that the decision was made to scrub the Crusader name and mascot 3 years ago, not now. Thus, the current survey didn't decide anything; it was merely part of a larger construct designed to give the illusion of a pressing grass roots movement with overwhelming student and alumni support.

In my world, we call this window dressing:

an adroit but superficial or actually misleading presentation of something, designed to create a favorable impression.

Ruse also works:

an action intended to deceive someone; a trick

[crusadermoe]

First of all I am a big fan of MLB as many on the board will know.

But I was a bit surprised by his recent deferral of the mascot question as a "university" matter. He may have told to be quiet.  But the whole idea of a mascot is pretty superfluous other than to athletes and ticket-buying sports fans.  I don't see it affecting recruitment of chemistry majors or see that other non-athletes really interact with a "mascot" very often.

So who bought the silence of MLB...?....perhaps preservations of budgets was offered?  That leads me back to the question "WH" poses. Can we find "deep throat" who will tell us about the 3 years ago dialog that led to the big mascot disappearance.  What did the A.D. know and when did he know it?       

[crusader05]

How long ago did they rebrand the crusader? I know that was when the shield imagery really took off across the campus as well and it seems like that imagery and stuff was used for sports teams as well.  I know that I remembered hearing around either the time of that rebranding or maybe it was during some other sort of athletic research that we were known nationally and regionally as "valpo" and that was the dominate way people differentiated us. My guess is that the salience of the mascot was already dying off.  I remember hearing that at least 2 or 3 years ago they couldn't even get students interested in being the mascot and so couldn't guarantee it could be at all the games.

[vu72]

VALPO VICTORY BELLS


Isn't that the longest standing tradition at VU and has nothing to do with the Crusader former mascot.







USA! USA! USAders!

This picture is very telling.  Was the idea to reduce/eliminate the Crusader in place for many years?  The victory bell in this picture has the name "Crusader" engraved on the wood support.  It now says "Victory" so I'm guessing this was done years ago when it was relocated to the ARC.

[crusadermoe]

Ha.  Film evidence of the conspiracy.     

[valpo84]

But who is the 2d spitter?