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 have been concerned with the portrayal of the Chief Illiniwek for some time. The thing that bothers me the most is the totally inaccurate portrayal of the Chief. The stereotype that the Chief portrays.

Simply taking another culture, the Dakota culture and appropriating it in the Illini culture and then having a third misappropriation of having just simply white people then portray an inaccurate portrayal of natives.

I have been told that many, many times that the Chief is simply a revered symbol and not a mascot. Fine, that is just words. They say that a mascot doesn't run around and act crazy and do goal posting and such. But however, when the symbol leaves the paper and turns into a three- dimensional form, that is in my view a mascot.

Purdue University has a mascot, it is a massive train. I have never seen that train be goal posted. And they call that train their mascot.

People say that the symbol is revered and it's not, not portrayed in the stereotypical form. Florida State has this symbol.

Well, University of Illinois had the same portrayal of this running savage. Well, you end up having Chief Illiniwek basketball, tomahawk and everything. I would like to also point out that these are officially licensed products bought at major national retail stores, mainly K-Mart and such. Another slam dunk Illiniwek, officially licensed version. Honored symbol. Tomahawk and menacing look. Another officially licensed version. This is the symbol which the athletic department says is the only, is the official symbol. However, on the back you then have the touchdown Chief Illiniwek, again slam dunk Illiniwek with his Nike shoes.

So much for the honored symbol. There is, you know, it's just a lot of it is just semantics, symbol, mascot. The opponents of Illiniwek, you know, say that disparage the people, native people because they might be full blood, however, they build up people who are native ancestry and say, you know, this person who has ancestry supports Illiniwek. This person who lives in Decatur who has native ancestry supports Illiniwek. However, you take a person who is not full blood and they are disparaged.

So, I truly urge the Board of Trustees to retire Chief Illiniwek. Thank you.

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