Chancellor Coombe,
The writing is on the wall. DU's most loyal alums have abandoned you. Hundreds have written comments on this blog and not a single one supports your letter. Hundreds have complained to DU's Publications Department and your Alumni Relations Office is under siege.
Channel 9 News has made a mockery of your letter and its only a matter of time before Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Keith Olbermann or The Daily Show does the same thing.
Retract your letter and give the decision of our mascot, where it belongs, in the hands of our students. Its their school, not yours. This can be a great educational experience for them, they can debate the issues at Magness Arena and vote at the conclusion. If need be they can design a new mascot. Under this scenario, we all win.
Damien Goddard
DU '89
The writing is on the wall. DU's most loyal alums have abandoned you. Hundreds have written comments on this blog and not a single one supports your letter. Hundreds have complained to DU's Publications Department and your Alumni Relations Office is under siege.
Channel 9 News has made a mockery of your letter and its only a matter of time before Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Keith Olbermann or The Daily Show does the same thing.
Retract your letter and give the decision of our mascot, where it belongs, in the hands of our students. Its their school, not yours. This can be a great educational experience for them, they can debate the issues at Magness Arena and vote at the conclusion. If need be they can design a new mascot. Under this scenario, we all win.
Damien Goddard
DU '89
31 comments:
Amen! Chancellor Coombe needs to FINALLY listen to those who pay his salary....the students!!
Damien,
Your efforts on behalf of this issue are to be commended.
Thanks Donald. Its been an interesting week to be sure. Lots of ups and downs. :-)
Can I hear an Amen.
AMEN!
Amen, we are with you DG. The Chancellor needs to get a little back bone.
I've heard rumors that DU will try to lure Condoleezza Rice back to be our new Chancellor.
Any thoughts?
If Condi graduated from DU in 1974, I bet she supports Boone! :)
Wow. Haven't heard that rumor but that would be huge.
Hopefully she would have enough snap to allow the students to select the mascot and spend her time on weightier issues.
DG,
Nice work. You hit the nail on the head.
Since when did this institution have to be "all things to all people". Coombe and company are caving into a small lunatic fringe.
what's next, transgendered bathroom...opps, they did that didn't they!
D. Goddard.....well said, excellent points.
Yo Coombe....time to grab your nuts and be a man. We're all waiting.....
I am with you on this, when did our campus move to Boulder?
It looks like a few radical politically correct folks are taking all of the fun out of our campus.
Can you imagine if CU decided one day that they would no longer have the Buffs as a mascot/symbol? Who the heck is this Coombe person? This will be a year that I choose not to give a donation to the University. As an Alum of this school, I am disgusted how the vote went down, as clearly Coombe did not represent the majority opinion. The arc of the word "Denver"??? Is that our symbol now?
Does anyone know how Coombe's job position is determined in terms of his renewal? Does the Board vote to keep this person in office for a period of time? I would like to submit something to the appropriate Board to give my 2 cents about this man who clearly doesn't represent the majority of both Alumni and Students at DU.
There's got to be someone with media connections here at the blogspot. If anybody has the ability to submit the TVchannel 9 video to a contact at Fox News (O'Reilly comes to mind), I'm sure this could get some additional media attention. What's next.........Fighting Irish, Atlanta Braves, Washington Redskins, ND Sioux, Fighting Irish, MN Vikings, Cornhuskers, NY Yankees, Mountaineers, Celtics, TB Buccaneer, Pitts Pirates. Too many too list.
Not sure about the chancellor's employment status.
I hope that he has people around him advising him on this issue and they help him turn around the ship.
I'm sure they want to ride this out and hope the issue dies down with time.
It would be an absolute disaster for DU if a national TV show picks up this story. We alums would look like jackasses on TV (because of his letter) and would be YouTube'd forever.
I can't believe that DU ever thought they'd get this reaction from alums & the community.
here's bill oreilly's contact website:
http://www.billoreilly.com/pg/jsp/general/contact.jsp
Has there been any opinions by previous Chancellors (Ritchie) on this topic? What about the Founders Day Committee members? Have any prominent Professors come out in support of Boone?
I think Coombe thinks this is purely a hockey fan thing and probably doesn't like sports, so could give a rat's arse.
Can't wait to see the CC game next week. Will there be a DU student dressed up as an Arch handing out arch keychains and arch stuffed animals? I want my picture taken with the Arch!!
PS: I'm offended by THE ARCH. Doesn't Coombe know that that ARCH is an Illuminati symbol of evil! LOL. I'm starting a "remove the arch blogspot"
Ritchie was always anti-Boone from what I've heard.
I heard today that the administration is all pretty shocked at the reaction from so many sources.
I think they hear us, but won't know for sure until I am officially wiped off the invite list for the Chancellors Dinner next year.
Dan Ritchie (and his then-appointed athletic director Dianne Murphy) DID very much hate Boone and was behind the dropping of Boone and the creation of the Red Hawk logo and mascot in the late 1990s. Nobody put up much of a stink back then since we had just gotten a new $75 million sports center and all sports returned to D-I, so logos didn't seen very important.
It's only since Ritchie and Murphy left DU that people feel safe to object to the Bird...
The issue isn't really even about Boone anymore. The principle of the matter is the lack of attention to a reasonable mascot. Coombe has his head so far up his ass that he gets away saying DU has an arch for a symbol.
He still has yet to address the issue of having a good mascot. If you ask me, this is the purest form of arrogance and should be brought up by the entire student body.
"Let's start a riot, a riot
Let's start a riot" - TDG
No one is starting a riot unless I'm in the house and get to watch it. :-)
This is bullshit. DU won't bring back Boone and now they won't let us buy t-shirts from BooneTown either?
Who do I have to blow to get a fucking t-shirt?
Bite me, Coombe.
You could try blowing Coombe, but he doesn't have any balls.
To the guy or gal who is making the t shirts and other Boone merchandise. I can't believe your website was taken down. Didn't the Chancellor Coombe dude say that the University of Denver couldn't care less about any copyright issues?
Instead of selling them online, I bet some of the coffee shops, pizza places, burger joints on East Evans and South University would gladly give you a space to sell your Boone items. You could create a wall board where the tshirts could hang and then give a few bucks to the store for their trouble of selling them to customers. You'd still make money, the students and alumni would get product, and the small restaurants could make a few extra dollars on the side. I'd definitely call Anthony's Pizza, Jordan's Pub, Campus Lounge, Stadium. Good luck.
Boone forever
Looks like the Cafe Press Boonetown site is back up. I heard that Cafe Press was the one who took it down over copyright concerns.
Where are all the Boone alumni supporters at the hockey games? I went last week, and didn't see any with Boone shirts, but I did see a lot of alumni in retro DU attire (yellow and red scarves, and the old DU logo with the wings coming out of the "D").
Anyway, I think most of the Boone sightings in terms of shirts and hats are probably in the Student Section, so I'm asking alumni to also pull out your dusty boxes in your attics and basements, and pull out any Boone shirts, buttons, hats, and show the students some alumni support.
I also want to get some Silkscreen's made that say something like "I'm an Alum, and will not be donating $$$$ until Boone returns". Any idea who does silkscreening in Denver? Can the Boone Store on Cafe Express make something like this for the well to do alumni who would like to wear something like this to stick it to the Chancellor?
ps: you'll all be happy to know that I just sent this du blog link out to about 45 DU alumni that I keep in contact with, and they too are spreading the word across this nation. hoping that others are doing the same
Just ask the boyz running Boonetown to make a Boone Shirts with "Alumni" and the logo. The site is back up running for now.
I don't know about you but I ain't fitting into too many of my "college clothes." :-)
Friday's Halloween game against CC will be "Bring Back Boone Night." That will be a true gauge of the rebellion.
The latest I've heard is that DU is catching flack from the alumni, community, parents and students. In other words, everybody.
I also hear from well places sources that "if the alumni push hard enough maybe Boone will return as mascot."
Keep the pressure up. Trust me, ITS WORKING.
If there's anyone at DU that you regularly keep in touch with, send them an email. If you donate, by all means contact the Alumni Development Office. Sending emails to your fellow alums is a brilliant idea.
If you are a student, an email from your parents to the parents association & Chancellor is HUGE.
Heard everybody at DU has checked out the Channel 9 Message Board and are monitoring LetsGoDU. Who knew that a little hockey blog could cause so raise so much Hell. :-)
I just received an email from the Dean of the Daniels College inviting me to an event this weekend.
I replied, "Bring Back Boone :-)"
This is so much fun...
Now that DU has released Boone into the public domain and the University will not pursue copywright, I think the reality is that there will be more Boone stuff visible than when he was an offical mascot and very few cared abut him.
Many people at DU are enjoying the attention that this is generating and you can expect to see some forward looking public forums on Pioneer identity in the next few weeks.
Chancellor Coombe,
Do you think the Fighting Irish logo of Notre Dame represents diveristy of that school's student body? Or should that be changed? How do you think that would go over?
Bring back Boone!
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