My Opinion on the UND Nickname

*Note: I didn't want to write this. But after scrolling through social media these last two days, I had to speak up.

My name is Nate Peterson and I'm a student-athlete at UND. I'm entering my fifth year of school so I can continue on and finish with my track and field eligibility. Track has been going great and occupies a lot of my time. I have finished a math major and am now working through a history major so I can teach both subjects in North Dakota.

Both of my parents are UND grads and I was raised in a Fighting Sioux household. Every year we tried to make it up to a Sioux game, and I remember checking the paper for women's basketball results because they would always be like 26-1 late in the season. When I narrowed my school search down to universities in North Dakota, the choice was easy: UND.

For years now I've been able to throw on that North Dakota jersey, and I've grown more in my pride for my school and state every year as a result.

My first semester of freshman year we were still the Sioux. Man it felt good to be in the huddle before a cross country race and hear 1..2..3 and yell SIOUX! But going into track that winter we had to get rid of the nickname, removing it from all parts of the team. We couldn't even have the logo on our water bottles. I was upset at this overreach and NCAA-brought injustice, so I cheered for the Al Carlson-led legislature when they forced, through law, the University to keep the nickname. Then, my sophomore year we didn't get invited to a meet at the University of Minnesota because of our name. Through that (and my Dad's wisdom) I realized that it was over. The Sioux nickname was gone. It still is. IT STILL IS. So you can retweet and repost all the UND hockey players you want, but the Sioux name is not coming back.

Eventually people moved on, because that's what North Dakotans do- they move on when awful things happen, just like we move on after bad storms. That brings up an interesting thought: what is the spirit of North Dakota?

The natives were obviously here first, some settling calmly near the Missouri in agriculturally-based permanent settlements, while others were more nomadic and travelling around (and much more prone to fighting). They were resourceful and came up with stunning ways of defeating both the winter cold and summer heat of Dakota (remember: no heat or AC back then).

The white settlers: first trappers, then military, and finally homesteaders, all had to endure the similar climate, unforgiving loneliness of the prairie, and ruthless exploitation by outside railroad and grain interests. They endured. Through an insistence on the strength of family and community coupled with a 'God will provide but you must also work' mentality they fought out a living here. Hail would destroy crops, droughts would scorch the land, and floods would wash life away, but they endured. They were able to move on and not dwell on the past. Things change, and we understand that in a state where storms can rise up in a matter of minutes.

North Dakotans are hesitant to embrace change initially, especially in government and politics, but we eventually get there. People can set aside their own interests for others as they always have and move towards a common good. That's the North Dakota spirit. What isn't the North Dakota spirit? Refusing to let go of something that's gone; downright insulting those whom you do not agree with; making outrageous claims to show anger. Here are two examples from facebook:

"The solution? If UND Fighting Sioux Hockey has the nerve, a petition of names of people who will NOT attend a und sport activity under any name other than North Dakota. I will stand right at the door refusing to cross that elitist, non participating yet knows what best for us, name making boards threshold. Of course it will hurt the Ralph, but I can imagine him barring the door with his own arms crossed."

"We should destroy the REA. It should go down with the Fighting Sioux. That's what Ralph would want all the f***** whiny a******* can go build another arena themselves with their crazily stupid new name."

STOP. Just stop. You are not helping anything. You are making all of us look bad to the nation, but you are also poorly representing North Dakotans and hence the University of North Dakota. If you truly love the University, you help them through this tough time, not act like a child.

My honest opinion? IT'S JUST A NICKNAME. Tomorrow  the sun will rise and set. Winter will come and spring will follow. People will do great things that they never believed they could do. The Earth will even continue to orbit around the sun. If we continue to dwell on the past and refuse to move on, at some point down the line we will go through this entire process again. It's absurd to keep fighting. When fighting an enemy, you keep fighting if the only other alternative is to lose. What is the loss here? Are the new nicknames really that bad?

Fighting Hawks: The Fighting Hawks captures the North Dakota spirit. Their sharp eyes and piercing talons are perfect for the open rolling prairies here. Often you can see them perched upon a fence post or hay bale, waiting and looking for their next meal. Even in a land without trees, hawks have adapted. That's the ND spirit. I would support this nickname.

Sundogs: For those of you who don't know, a sundog is a halo of rainbow that you see in the sky on frigid cold and clear days in the winter. Normally this kind of cold is what we receive after some kind of blizzard or we are in some kind of cold spell. Nevertheless, sundogs are a beautiful sight that only endurance of some kind of harsh weather can bring about. The North Dakota spirit has a lot to do with enduring hardships and finding beauty in the aftermath. Also, sundogs are beautiful! I would support this nickname.

Roughriders: This is an obvious reference to Theodore Roosevelt and is already a nickname for Grand Forks Red River high school, but what's the problem here? Roosevelt fell in love with western North Dakota and its rugged beauty. The calm and peacefulness of the spectacular landscape affording him enough courage as to even say that he would not have gotten as far as he did had he not been in North Dakota. Even so, if you think about a more literal meaning of the word, there are so many folks in the state that enjoy riding horse, and especially out west there are plenty of rough areas to ride. That's the North Dakota spirit. I would support this nickname.

Nodaks: Kind of rolls off the tongue, eh?

North Stars: Too much of a Minnesota thing, so I'll pass.

My recommendation is this: MOVE ON. We will not be the Sioux again. I honestly don't care about the injustice the NCAA committed to UND by telling them their nickname was offensive. It's in the past and can't be changed. We can either wallow in self-pity and anger, looking bitterly on the past, or we can look forward to a new future. If you truly love this university, THIS STATE, you need to realize that you are giving it a crutch by continuing to beat this dead horse of not having a nickname. Being nickname-less sucks. Every other school has some kind of cool mascot and logo except us. It's time to move to the next stage of UND's life. Are you ready?

When an Easy Run Becomes a Workout

It's been an interesting week of training so far. On Monday I was up at 5:40 in the morning to get in a fartlek workout before heading off on Trekkers. This is a camp where we leave in canoes on Monday with tents, food, clothing, etc, and come back on Thursday. We go canoeing around the lake, camping on the shoreline wherever we want, and cooking meals over a fire. The kids had a great time! The act of canoeing for hours under the summer sun every day is taxing enough, but then stopping somewhere without a public access road makes running almost impossible. I was fortunate to only have to take one day off this week, but my runs were exhausting, even at an easy pace. I wasn't eating the best food and I definitely wasn't getting enough sleep. Then today happened.

This morning was my long run. Luckily enough, a friend of mine from Bismarck who has a lake cabin near the camp was there to run with me. His name is Elliot Stone and he just came off of a stellar senior season at Shiloh Christian where he broke the State Class B records in the 1600 and 3200, and now he is training for his freshman year at NDSU. I enjoy running with him because he has a great laid-back personality to compromise a calculated attentiveness to training.

I stepped out of my cabin at 6:55am and was greeted by a strong gust of cool wind. We have been drowning in humidity for the past couple of weeks, but the weather has changed. Today a west wind gusting in the mid-to-upper 30s kept everything nice and cool. I had a 13-mile easy run scheduled and he had a 13-mile progressive on his sheet (a progressive run is where each mile is faster than the one before it, so you progressively increase the pace). The first half of the run was awesome, but we had the wind either at our back or at our side. Recall that on the gravel roads to the camp, there is only one road coming in, so every run becomes an out-and-back, so we had to turn around and come back. In the last five miles, we had a two mile stretch continuously into the wind and a decent uphill at the end of it, followed by a downhill mile with the wind at our side, then another uphill into the wind mile, and then we ended with a last mile where the wind was at our side again.

I have no idea what our paces were in the last half of the run, because I was just trying to survive. We eventually shed the idea of trying to hit faster paces, choosing instead for an easy pace, and focused on fighting the wind and trying to traverse the North Dakota countryside. Our conversation quickly faded, for we couldn't hear each other without yelling. We had to check behind us often, because we were running in the middle of the road and had no way of hearing a car or pickup coming behind us. We were grateful for the rain this week, because if not we would have had gravel and dust thrown constantly into our eyes.

I can hold my own against wind. I've been running long enough in North Dakota to know to slowly grind away into the wind and to not get angry or upset at it. Hills, however, are still my enemy due to the fact that my Red River Valley legs haven't studied up on changes in topography much. I quickly and often fell behind Elliot while running up the hills into the wind. I would look ahead and pinpoint exactly where I would give up and ask to stop for a rest. Every gust of wind punched me in the face, but more importantly in the legs and almost took away my resolve to keep picking them up. The wind masked the fact that I was starting to wheeze. My legs were turning to lead and becoming impossible to pick up. Honestly, the fact that Elliot was continuing to push kept me going, and I did everything I could to not stop and instead kept close to him.

We got to the end of the two mile stretch into the wind and turned the corner for our downhill mile with the wind at our side. My breathing was heavy and my legs were slow. I looked at him and coughed out "how are you doing?" "I'm fine" he says "that wind is kind of tough isn't it?" Elliot is from Bismarck, and Bismarck is a hilly place, so he handles hills like a boss. I couldn't see it, but I'm pretty sure he tied a rope around both of our waists and drug me up a few of those hills today. My supposed 'easy' run turned into a battle against mother nature, and as anybody from North Dakota knows, mother nature doesn't like to lose. In fact, she really never does. But we can extract our revenge by conquering the elements little by little. I am now stronger today for finishing this, and that's what's important.

This next week I'll be in Bismarck doing day camps (vacation Bible school), and I know I'll have to be ready for the hills. Hopefully it isn't too windy; I have some easy runs scheduled!

Have a Great Weekend!

A Letter to Dave

Hi Dave,

It was great seeing you out at the Camp this week and everything you were able to bring to the kids. Being that this is our only week where the on-site campers are all middle/high school age, having your Christian hip-hop seemed to light them up and bring them a little energy that we might not have been able to give.

You caught me off guard the first night when you came up to me and asked if I was a runner. A lot of people who ask me that question simply want to know how many miles I run a day, but you were looking for someone to run with. I couldn't believe my good fortune! One thing about the North Dakota countryside is that even though it is beautiful, sometimes it can be lonely with nobody to share it with.

You spent an enormous amount of time apologizing in advance for how slow your pace would be, but in all honesty you probably went faster than I normally do on my easy runs. People who take running seriously can usually do easy runs together, no matter what their PR's are, because easy days aren't about your pace. I don't even look at my watch anymore, because if I start breathing too hard, I know to slow down. I will admit that on Tuesday when my legs were exhausted, I was using an unusual amount of strength just trying to keep up with you. So don't sweat it that you've only been running for a little more than year- you pushed me.

I'm a talkative guy, but being able to listen to someone else's stories was truly a blessing. Hearing about your experiences growing up and all the people you've engaged with was refreshing. I also was interested in your stories about how difficult it is to run when you have young kids at home, now that  they are old enough to not want to ride in the stroller anymore. As you mentioned about how free it is to run out here, I often take for granted being able to go out and run whenever I want to, without worrying about people to take care of. So props to you for sticking with it in the face of adversity.

When you mentioned how beautiful the countryside is, you put a smile on my face. It's not too often that people from outside North Dakota can come here and appreciate the openness. In fact, it was touching to know that the week before you go rap in front of 35,000 kids in Detroit, you spent time with 35 kids in rural central North Dakota. I know that you had a major impact on them, and I'm assuming they did on you. I enjoyed sharing my limited knowledge of training with you, and in return I'm thankful for the deeper theological topics you've learned in seminary that you were able to share with me.

I want to let you know that the most awesome thing you did for me this week was at campfire in the middle of the week. You were eating an apple and somebody asked why you had brought it with you when we were handing out cheese-filled breadsticks to the kids. You pointed at me and said 'I go by what he says; he told me that apples are good for runners in training'. That meant a lot to me. I hope your trip goes safely this weekend, and that you can inspire the thousands of kids you meet next week. I hope you can find a person to run with and nice running places in the Detroit area. If it ever gets too noisy, just remember the quiet ND countryside with the wheat swaying in the breeze. Because odds are that's where I'll be. Peace be with you.

An Ode to Summer Running

It may be true that the early bird catches the worm, but the early runner catches the sunrise. I personally believe that sunrises are more special than sunsets, but that's simply because in summer I see so few of the former, and so many of the latter. So when I rolled out of bed on Saturday morning at 5:25, it was to my dismay that it seemed light outside already; the stars weren't even visible anymore! I quickly tied my shoes, realized I put on the wrong pair, untied them, tied the other pair on, and scampered outside. Turns out the sun wasn't up yet.

I started jogging down the road, not even bothering to start with a shirt on even though the summer morning cool still hung heavily in the air. I celebrated being the first one awake for about 15 seconds, and then I saw the boat trailer in the parking area, dripping with water and with no boat in sight. I guess the early fisherman catches the best fish. 

I sped up from a limp-jog to more of a step-jog because my legs were now waking up a little on this groggy morning. The light was growing in the northeastern sky, but no big ball of fire had yet appeared. The birds were chirping, the rabbits were sitting on the road, and a whitetail deer must have been offended by my smell and ran off into the skyline. The deer had probably been there for awhile, and I guess the early deer catches the tasty dew-covered grass.

I started thinking about how much easier training is at this time of day. In my first two years on staff at Camp of the Cross, my prep time (break) was from 3:30-5:00, and you may recognize that as the heat of the day. I have vivid memories of stopping and walking for awhile simply because I was dying. I pounced on opportunities to run in the mornings on weekends, when I could breath cool air that evades the land during the day. Sometimes I would see farmers up already spraying their fields before it got windy, but I guess the early farmer catches the calm weather.

Summer running is simply more relaxing in the early morning. The whole terrain sits quietly, as if preparing for the incredible 16 hours of sunlight that is to come. Around mile 3 I passed by another pickup, but this one was carrying the boat with it. They slowed down and skirted past me, giving the standard wave that people up at this time of day will surely do, having seen so few people. I guess the early driver catches the quietest roads.

The nice thing about this long run was that it took me 8 miles to sweat through the entirety of my running shorts, unlike the 4 miles it took last week under the summer sun. Nobody is there to see it. I think about the Prairie Lake Festival we have coming up that day, a grueling 9 hours of hospitality and quilt-selling. I think about the concept of distance, and how different our idea of it today is than that of the homesteaders 130 years ago. I lament for those who are still sleeping and missing out on the sun finally peeking over the horizon, checking to see if all is well before leaping up into the sky. It does decide to jump, but it's quickly overtaken by a small group of clouds which bully it for the next 20 minutes. The sun eventually breaks free and illuminates a quiet, clear, and awe-striking landscape. The canola has bloomed yellow, the brilliant blue of the flax fields is showing early signs of returning, and even the wheat is coming along wonderfully. 

I press on towards to camp, mile after mile breezing by. The wind off the lake is picking up, allowing a cool breeze to start what promises to be a warm day. Fortunately we have air conditioning, but that is a relatively new thing. Some people who settled the prairie had ingenious ideas of how to keep their houses/huts cool, including deep windowsills to cut off the amount of sunlight coming in. I wonder if with all of our new technological inventions we are becoming more resourceful or less. The true engineer is not the one who is paid to create a certain machine, but the one who can look at any situation and devise a way or mechanism to make it better. I guess the early riser catches a little philosophy.

I'm back at camp now. It was a good 13 mile run. We're leaving in 30 minutes and I still need to run strides, stretch, eat, grab a camp vehicle, and try to round up the herd camp staff for a full Saturday of work. I can't help but remember how I have no inclination to hop back into bed right now. I'm fully awake all day as a result of my morning summer runs. It seems to me like it's the most rewarding time to run. I guess you could say the early runner catches the peace of the world. 

Yesterday's Run

The campers had just left and the camp was quiet again. We all shifted over to the lodge for staff meeting and worship, our bodies starting to shut down after a week of excitement and constant motion. We sat and listened to some music, periodically singing along and relaxing from the week. One of the pastors brought us root beer floats, which we happily took in. After that we had our meeting and we dispersed for the weekend. Being already close to normal supper time, I hastily put on my running clothes and prepared to go run. I brought my iPod with me because with all the traffic leaving camp, I preferred not to listen to all the cars driving around on the gravel roads. I started jogging down the road.

The sky was overcast as it had seemed to be all week. A cool, humid breeze was coming off the lake, forcing me to remove my shirt since I was sweating hard within the first mile. A half mile into my run I already knew this was not going to be a fun by any means. Going into the second mile I started climbing up a steady 3/4 mile hill into the wind, and my stomach was starting to do backflips; this was going to be bad.

Mentally I started struggling. Should I turn around and head back? Am I really going to finish 9 miles? Where should I turn around? Where are the trees for me to stop at if I need to? After all, this is central/western North Dakota and groves of trees are few. I prepared conversations that I would start to a passing driver if the shirtless sweaty runner needed a ride back. In addition, my legs were sore from my first tempo run of the summer the day before, a beautiful day where all the pieces fell together perfectly. I should have expected today's struggle.

Last year I probably would have turned around at some point, but this year I wrote out my running schedule day-by-day for the summer and so I continued telling myself 'you need to run 9 miles- you can finish this'. People were driving past me on the gravel road, waving at me and likely unaware of my struggles.

One of the great things about running out in the country is that it comes down to you and the road. There are no places with lights to make you stop. There are no public restrooms. There are no convenient trails to slip into or people to run with. You either need to tough it out or give up. I prayed for strength to get back safely.

During the second half of the run my legs were beginning to loosen up, but my stomach was getting more and more agitated. Being able to only handle small amounts of dairy, I quickly began to chastise myself for having two cups of ice cream before I went out on this particular run, as it sure wasn't helping anything. A couple times I had to stop and walk in order to let my stomach sort out its problems before I continued. All was quiet, the wind continued to blow, and the hills didn't go anywhere.

With about a mile and half remaining, I peaked over a hill and could see camp for the first time in a while. It dawned on me that I was actually going to make it back. My body was starting to feel better and I relaxed a little. I coasted back into the camp to the ever-so-familiar gravel parking lot and removed my headphones. It was quiet. Everybody had left. There was a couple fishing in a boat not too far offshore. I went and did some tough hill strides (legs still tired), and I called it a day. It took about 3 hours for my stomach to settle down, but that's how it goes. We need some 'crappy' days to help us appreciate the good days. For every sunset, we are promised a sunrise. For every winter, we are promised a spring. For every failure, we are promised forgiveness. Praise the Lord for the bad days, because how could we enjoy the good days without them?

Have a Great Day!

Lessons From Children

Well I have returned from a week of doing day camps (vacation Bible school) in Carson, ND. The family that we stayed with owns a ranch outside of town in the Heart River valley, and the house we stayed at was at the bottom of the valley by the river, and it had little-to-no cell phone service and extremely poor Wi-Fi. Needless to say, it was heaven. Carson is in southwest North Dakota and is a pretty hilly place, making running out there tough. To make it tougher, there were two directions to go- north or south- to go with the fact that the house was at the floor of the valley. This meant that no matter which direction I picked, I signed up for around 10 minutes of tough uphill running at the start of each and every morning run (when my legs are still trying to wake up). It was worth it. I’ve been discovering the amazingness of morning runs out in the country this summer. The quiet and peacefulness of it all is simply stunning, and the beautiful western North Dakota scenery helps too J

So back to day camps. During the camps we stay with somebody and work with kids for around 6 hours a day. We play games, do crafts, sing songs, learn from the Bible, and play more games. One of the interesting things about kids is that they’re pretty easy to read when it comes to what they want. They generally tell you outright, whether you want to hear it or not. One of the kids was annoying me with his 5000 questions, each one of them going exactly like this: “Can we play octopus?!”

Octopus is a game similar to tag. Kids line up on one side and have to run to the other without getting tagged by the octopus (or multiple octopuses [octopi?]). If they get tagged, they sit where they were tagged and become seaweed. As you may expect, this game favors the fast on their feet. This camper thought he was really fast (to be fair he was the fastest of the campers), and so he always wanted to play octopus because he knew he could win. When he won, he didn’t want to be the octopus because then he wouldn’t get a chance to win. And when he won, it was not in a respectable fashion. He would walk as slow as possible to the other side, only running when somebody was chasing him specifically. He would look around for validation from other kids and us counselors, hoping that somebody would acknowledge how good he was at the game. It drove me crazy. But then I had the sobering realization that I am no different than he.

When I go to meets or races, I know that I’m constantly looking around for validation from other athletes, or maybe even the slightest hint that I could be as good as my brain tells me I am. Even doing strides after an easy run, I find myself looking around to see if anybody is watching. It’s pathetic, really. I’ve tried to force myself to not pay attention to other people, but it’s hard. When I saw this camper’s wandering eyes, I could see myself before meets. When I saw him walking across the field instead of running, I saw myself running strides harder than I should at meets, trying to show off. When I saw how angry he got when he finally got tagged, and how he searched for broken rules to get out of being tagged, I saw myself falling apart when a workout doesn’t go my way.

So you know what camper? I’m not mad at you anymore. We are alike. I hope you join track and cross country someday, and I hope you do a better job than I do at making it more about serving others and less about yourself. Because that’s where true joy can come from. It’s something I work on each and every day, and we all should do that. Running is much more fun when you can share it with others, only as long as you can have some alone time in the North Dakota countryside every now and again! J

Have a Great Day!

First Camp Post

I rolled over and grabbed my watch. It was 6:20 in the morning, 10 minutes before my alarm was set to go off. This is a frustrating feeling, but it saved me the excitement of trying to shut off my alarm quickly enough to not wake up any other camp staff in the cabin. The sun had already been awake for an hour, its heat shining through the window above my head and lighting up the room. The birds too had been awake and were doing their best to let the whole world know it. I checked the weather and slinked out of bed to go change into my running clothes.

My head still a little bit foggy, I put on my running shorts, tied up my shoes, and got a drink of water before heading out the door. I didn't bother putting on a shirt, because by the time I got to the camp mailbox I would be using the box for shirt storage anyway. Even though my legs were not ready, I started jogging down the gravel road. I could feel my shoes picking up dirt and flinging it onto the back of my legs and shorts, as it normally does the morning after rain. The only sound was the birds and my running.

My ears gradually adjusted to the sweet sound of shoes scraping against gravel. It is truly a unique sound that can put me into a good daydream just about any time. I ran along the road as it took a big turn to the northeast and out of camp past the mailboxes. Now I could see the sun shining brilliantly above the horizon, fracturing spectacularly off of the clouds still hanging above from the night's rain. As I headed north, I could see ahead of me a valley full of fog. To my right was a stunning small gorge headed down into the nearby lake. The cattle grazing there lifted their heads up to stare at me. Eventually they concluded I was safe, as they had every morning so far this week, and went back to grazing.

As the miles rolled by, full of long, easy, undulating hills on gravel roads, I loosened up and gathered myself into a groove. I allowed myself to daydream about the coming day when campers would come to camp for the first time this summer, I thought about next track season, and I thought about how great it could be to live somewhere like this someday. I went past my favorite fields to look at, more hilly valleys dotted with cattle, and was always accompanied by the sun illuminating the sleepy landscape. I had yet to see another human.

As I peaked over the hardest hill of the run on my way back, I could see a figure off in the distance. As I approached it, I could see the smiling face of Cassidy on her bike, out for a morning ride. She turned around and rode with me, commenting on the cows near the fence and how we had talked about them a few days before on a morning run/bike. She also mentioned how difficult it is to bike on wet gravel. I agreed. The conversation flowed, and I was lost in the beauty of it all. Before heading back into camp, I made sure to look around behind me to see the sun shining over the valleys, bouncing off the fog and spreading light everywhere. We came into the familiar camp and stopped in the parking lot. My time was faster than the last two days because Cassidy pushes me when riding her bike. I was wide awake now.

As we came to a stop in the muddy parking lot, I announced to her that I was going to do some hill sprints to keep building that strength. I would start by the lake and run up into the camp parking lot. I started walking through the soft, wet grass underneath a warm summer morning sky. I turned around to see Cassidy following me. She had her running shoes on. I smiled. The only sound was the birds.