A $100-Million Donor's Ultimatum

The following is from a December 20 letter from Ralph Engelstad, a Las Vegas casino owner who pledged $100-million to the University of North Dakota, to Charles E. Kupchella,

ALSO SEE: A Battle Over a Name in the Land of the Sioux

the president of the university, about the controversy over "Fighting Sioux," the name of the university's athletics teams:

Dear Chuck:

I am sorry to write this letter but as a businessman I have no choice.

Commitments were made to me by others and yourself, regarding the Sioux logo and the Sioux slogan before I started the arena and after it had been started.

These promises have not been kept and I, as a businessman, cannot proceed while this cloud is still hanging above me. ...

I understand that you are to make a decision sometime in the future but I do not understand where one person gets the authority to make this kind of a decision on behalf of all alumni, students, the City of Grand Forks and the State of North Dakota. ...

Please be advised that if this logo and slogan are not approved by you no later than Friday, December 29, 2000, then you will leave me with no alternative but to take the action which I think is necessary.

If the logo and slogan are not approved by the above-mentioned date, I will then write a letter on December 30, 2000 to all contractors and to everybody associated with the arena canceling their construction contracts for the completion of the arena. I am a man of my word and I will see to it that a settlement is made with all subcontractors, with anyone who has purchased pre-paid advertising, I will refund money to all ticketholders and abandon the project. It would be then left up to you if you want to complete it with money from wherever you may be able to find it.

I have spent, as of this time, in excess of $35,000,000.00 which I will consider a bad investment but I will take my lumps and walk away.

As I am sure you realize, the commitment I made to the University of North Dakota was, I believe, one of the 10 largest ever made to a school of higher education, but if it is not completed, I am sure it will be the number one building never brought to completion at a school of higher education due to your changing the logo and the slogan.

You need to think how changing this logo and slogan will effect not just the few that are urging the name change but also how it will effect the university as a whole, the students, the City of Grand Forks and the State of North Dakota.

If I walk away and abandon the project, please be advised that we will shut off all temporary heat going to this building and I am sure that nature, through its cold weather, will completely destroy any portion of the building through frost that you might be able to salvage. I surely hoped that it would never come to this but I guess it has.

It is a good thing that you are an educator because you are a man of indecision and if you were a businessman, you would not succeed, you would be broke immediately.

Please do not consider this letter a threat in any manner as it is not intended to be. It is only notification to you of exactly what I am going to do if you change this logo and this slogan.

In the event it is necessary to cancel the completion of this arena, I will then send notification to anyone who is interested in informing them of the same and laying out to them all of the facts and all of the figures from all of the meetings that led me to make this decision.

Your lack of making a decision has hung over our heads too long and we can't go on with it any further.

It is your choice if you want to put hundreds of construction workers out of a job and deprive the local businesses of Grand Forks of the income they are receiving from the construction of the arena. ...

Yours truly,

Ralph Engelstad

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