The following is the transcript of a Foellinger balcony narrative from April 14, 2000. It is an unedited excerpt from the original Chief dialogue document.

I would like to talk to you, ask you first to take one step back out of the little bubble that is the U of I here and one little step here at the Big 10. I would like to let you know what is going on at the Big 10; University of Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin have all passed resolutions that they don't want the Chief on their campus. Saying that they will not play schools like the University of Illinois in nonconference games or for that matter, any school with a racist mascot.

I would like to let you know what is going on at Northwestern. Right now we are currently working with our administration to get a similar resolution passed. They tell us that they don't want to interfere in any inner workings in any other university's policies right now. That is what is slowing us down. But what we are getting them to see and what we are fighting for and what we will succeed at very shortly is to get them to pass a resolution very similar to what is going on at these other Big 10 schools saying that we won't play any game, any teams with racist mascots in nonconference games.

And I think this is going to spread around the Big 10. I think that is what is important to know. That it's going to spread from Northwestern onto all the schools in the Big 10 and throughout the NCAA and throughout the whole country.

I would also like to let the Board know that people at Northwestern are fighting the fight. And they are educating people and they are raising awareness about this issue. The word is spreading. We have programs that are sending kids to reservations. I was fortunate enough to go on a program like this last spring. I spent a week on a reservation in northern Minnesota and what I learned there is some timeless lessons about what Native American spirituality can just teach us, universal truth that I think we can all take home. I would just like to urge the Board of Trustees to foster this kind of educational environment here at the U of I in the form of a Native American studies program.

I would like to see each member of the Board of Trustees to go to a reservation even for a day. Just to see, to see what it's like, see the destitute and see the alcoholism and the complete depression that these people are living with that our culture, this Anglo Euro culture has forced them into. I think that they can really see that they are not respecting anything with Chief Illiniwek, that you really can't respect something until you have experienced it, until you have become educated about it.

And I guess in conclusion, I would just like to tell the Board to even take one further step back and to all of humanity and the whole nations of people that Chief Illiniwek is affecting. This is real racism. People are angry. People have said, similar to what happened to African Americans and similar to what happened to so many cultures in the past, it's just because Native Americans don't have a representation. They have never had a representation in the history of our country that this has lasted so long. I just think that if you really look at that, you can just see that it's a 70 year old sporting tradition don't hold up to a timeless spiritual tradition. Thanks a lot.

See the U.I. Dialogue on Chief Illiniwek page for more transcripts and information.