Actually, Illinois no longer uses Chief Illiniwek and cannot use any native American imagery during their games. U of I proved to the NCAA that the nickname Fighting Illini referred to the fighting men during WWI and the name predated any indian mascot. They were allowed to keep the nickname but had to drop the Chief. If the nickname had referred to Native American's then they would have had to drop that too. The State of Illinois, luckily, was allowed to keep their name which I am sure honked off the NCAA.