The ancestral war dance, or challenge, by the Maori people of New Zealand received a mixed reaction there, and a petition was started to stop Arizona from doing the dance after a video of Ngati Toa’s doing the dance went viral. Doing the dance before sporting events was popularized by the All Blacks, New Zealand’s national rugby team.
MORE: Week 5 Pac-12 Power Rankings | Our weekend picks
“The Arizona football program has a strong lineage of Polynesian student-athletes, and in 2009, a group of players wished to share this aspect of their culture with their teammates and community,” Arizona said in a statement, via the New Zealand Herald.
The response the university received prompted the change.
“Even though that intent remains the same today, we’ve been made aware that a segment of the population is unhappy that the haka is being performed,” the university continued. “As a result, we have decided to discontinue the activity.”
