Monday, May 23, 2005

PC nickname squabbles at Marquette University

As regular readers of this blog know, Marathon Pundit has been hitting Chicago's DePaul University hard over the Thomas Klocek free speech battle.

Meanwhile, 90 miles north of Chicago, DePaul's Big East conference mate, Milwaukee's Marquette University, is for the second time this year looking for a new nickname.

Marquette used to be known as the Warriors. These warriors were the Native American type. By 1974 or so the Warriors name was still in use, but the Native American connections to the name were dropped. That wasn't good enough for the PC police, so by 1994, Marquette's new sports nickname was the Golden Eagles. Last year, two Marquette trustees each offered the university $1 million if the school went back to being the Warriors (without the Native American tie-ins.)

This maneuver instead inspired the full Marquette board of trustees last month to choose a completely different, but unspirational nickname: The Gold.

Surprising no one but the board of trustees, the Gold nickname went over about as well as a Pauly Shore movie would at the Sundance Film Festival

So once again, the nickname battle is on again in Milwaukee. The school president, the Reverend Robert Wild, did what university honchos do best, he formed a committee. This committee came up with these new team names to be voted on. (I'm not sure by whom.)

According to the AP, via CBS 2 Chicago, these potential nicknames will be on the ballot: Blue and Gold, Explorers, Golden Avalanche, Golden Eagles, Golden Knights, Hilltoppers, Saints, Spirit, Voyagers and Wolves.

The same source spells out that write-in votes will be accepted, except for Warriors.

Which brings to mind this post from last week, courtesy of George Orwell.

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