GAMING NAMING

               The anti-racism protests that have roiled many American cities these last few months may or may not result in substantive changes in our society, but they have claimed at least one “W” of a symbolic nature.  That would be the decision of the Washington National Football League team to, finally, drop the “Redskins” appellation it has hauled around since 1937. Other teams with Native-American-inspired names still cavort on various playing fields but none of their monikers is as all-around-objectionable as the ’Skins’. It will be missed by few.

               The Washingtonians’ move no doubt will spur examination of more of the above-mentioned names, all of which have been under some sort of fire. The baseball Cleveland Indians have said they are mulling a change, and the Atlanta Braves have indicated they may move to nix the tomahawk-motion cheer that has become their trademark. My alma mater, the U of Illinois, some years ago dropped its Chief Illiniwek symbol, after prolonged strife. Dumping the school’s Fighting Illini nickname has been urged by some, but that might also require changing the name of the state, which is of native-inhabitant origin. So too, by the way, are 25 other U.S. state names, 26 if you include Hawaii.

               One Amerind name that probably will hang on is that of the Florida State U. Seminoles. Since 1978 the schools’ mascots have been Osceola, a noted Seminole chief, and his appaloosa horse Renegade. Before every FSU home football game an Osceola impersonator rides Renegade onto the field and casts a burning spear into the ground around the 50-yard line. The names, and the capering, have the okay of the Seminole tribe, but that approval might stem in part from its gratitude that the school had dropped previous Indian mascots, among them Sammy Seminole, Chief Fullabull and Chief Wampumstompum.

The desire not to offend turns many athletic entities towards the zoo when it comes to naming or renaming, with results that are drearily generic. How far schools will go to avoid that pitfall is best exemplified by Stanford University, which in 1972 changed its teams’ name from the Indians to the Cardinal. That’s Cardinal singular, as in the color, not the bird. (Gotta watch them touchy bird lovers.) The school’s mascot runs around dressed as a tree. Who could object to that?

But Stanford aside, college team names generally have it all over those of the pros, probably because here are so many of them that some have to get it right. There are occupational names tied to the school’s mission, such as the Purdue Boilermakers and the Leigh Engineers, and ones with a meteorological tilt, like the Miami Hurricanes and Iowa State Cyclones. There are whimsical names like the Hampshire College Blacksheep, and neo-whimsical ones, such as the Cal-Irvine Anteaters and the mighty Artichokes of Scottsdale Community College in my AZ backyard. There are plays on words, like the Pace College Setters.

Usually, college cheers echo the institutions’ names, but sometimes the reverse has been true. Georgetown U. calls its teams the Hoyas after its “Hoya Saxa!” yell, a Greek-Latin amalgam that the school says translates to “what rocks!”  Virginia Polytechnic Institute dubs its teams the Hokies after a turn-of-the-20^th century chant that began “Hokey, hokey, hokey high/ Tech, Tech, VPI.”

Catholic-run Manhattan College names its teams the Jaspers after Brother Jasper, its first baseball coach. The University of Idaho’s Vandals nickname comes not from the ancient Germanic tribe but from a sportswriter’s exclamation that a long-ago school basketball team “vandalized” an opponent.

The origins of the University of North Carolina’s flavorful Tarheels nickname are lost in time. One version has it that state residents dumped tar into a river to impede British troops during the Revolutionary War, another has Civil War soldiers from the state telling detractors they would fight better if their heels also had been dipped in the plentiful gunk.  Indiana U.’s “Hoosiers” name is similarly obscure; it might stem from what early homesteaders in the state were said to have hollered when people knocked on their doors.

My favorite is the Billikens of St. Louis U. It seems that a billiken is an elfish, round-bellied statuary figure of Asian origin that used to be a popular good-luck charm. In 1910 a sportswriter decided that John Bender, the school’s football coach, looked like one and started calling the team “Bender’s Billikens.” The name stuck.

I have no expectation that Washington’s ownership will come up with anything clever or even interesting to replace Redskins. They’ve moaned publicly that a name change for an organization as august as theirs is no easy matter, requiring considerable thought and research. Executive brains must be taxed, focus groups convened. For the coming season (if there is one) the name “Washington Football Team” must suffice. Speculation has “Warriors” in the rename lead. Then it’s off to the zoo for “Red Wolves” and “Red Hawks,” although I read that somebody has copyrights on those names and would have to be paid off before they could be used

If the zoo it must be, I favor “Hogs.” Yeah, it has negative connotations, but it’s genuinely local, that being the team’s well known offensive-line nickname during its 1980s glory days. How about the “DisCos,” for a D.C. play? Or the “Lobbyists” or “Swamp Creatures” for a capital connection? If those don’t scare opponents, nothing will.