The Madness of March

They don't call it March Madness for nothin'!

The NCAA Tourney started today and already there have been some mild upsets. That's what makes it so entertaining. Also entertaining is the next installment of the nickname article. If you'd like to see the original article in it's entirety (minus the pics!), you can visit my old blog called Moniker, man.

One of the weirdest (and believe me, the competition is tough!) is the Southern Illinois Salukis. What the hell is a Saluki? Apparently, I am not the first one to ask this question. When Walt Frazier was leading the So. Illinois team to an NIT championship in 1967, sportswriter Jerry Isenberg wrote the following:


Princeton has its Tiger. B.C. has its Eagle,
Rutgers is the Queensmen, a title truly regal.
But from frigid New York City to Kentucky's old Paduchee,
There's just one burning question – what the hell is a Saluki?

Ok, for the record, please note that Rutgers used to be the Queensmen?!? Ugh.

Well, the short answer is, a Saluki is nothing more than a fancy name for a dog. For the long answer, you can visit SIUC's website. Basically, it's an Egyptian dog, and Salukis were accepted as the finest animals a family could possibly possess. Known for their speed and hunting skills, Salukis are the oldest pure-breed dogs in the world with records dating back to 3600 B.C. That's great. And very historical. Not to mention very biblical. And much better than their former name – the Maroons! But, don't you think they could have come up with a better looking representative of that fine animal?

This reminds me of the dog on the Simpsons. Hellooo Santa's Little Helper!



As a resident of Oregon, I cannot, in all good conscience, have a blog such as this without mentioning the University of Oregon Ducks. Ducks. How is that supposed to intimidate another team? Has anyone lately been mauled by a duck. I know it's a Northwest animal, but for pete's sake, there are bears and mountain lions here. It's not like all of the good names were taken by other schools in the state (Oregon State Beavers). It's bad enough to have a wimpy nickname like Ducks, but then they used a symbol ripped off from Walt Disney of Donald Duck.

Yeah, they tried to make him look tough, but what do you expect from a mascot that doesn't wear pants?

Fortunately, they've made amends by:

a) coming up with a much better symbol:

b) finding a meaner duck:







and c) getting cool looking helmets:

Go Ducks!





Next weird one: The Manhattan Jaspers. While it has a nice ring to it, I caught myself wondering again, what the hell is a jasper? Oddly enough, the fine folks at Manhattan College, just as at SIUC, have found it necessary to explain the whole thing. (Yeah, that's where I want to go to college – someplace where you have explain the nickname!?)

It's not even as exciting as the Saluki, because, ah-hem, it was named after, uh-hmm , a, errr, a person. Named Jasper. They don't even have a symbol, just the words:


There's the Liberty Flames:
(Hey, that's not a flame, that's an eagle. They need to take the same zoology class as the students at Southern Utah!)

And there's the University of Illinois – Chicago:



Yeah! That's more like it – now that's a flame!

Championship Week

It's championship week in college basketball. It's the week when most teams play their conference tournaments. It all leads up to Selection Sunday, when the teams are picked for the NCAA Tournament. Here's the next installment in the crazy college nicknames article.




Loyola University in Chicago has the unfortunate distinction of being the "Ramblers." Yeah, my grandparents drove one of those, a red 1963 Rambler Classic.



But someone thinks a Rambler is the same thing as a husky:




Hah, what do they know!


Here's one that makes no sense when you hear it, but then it does make sense when you think about it. The Murray State Racers. "What," you say? Racers? Well, Murray State is located in Kentucky. And then when you see their logo, you get it. Three cheers for being different, AND making sense at the same time!






Hey, is this a cool mascot, or what? The Richmond Spiders. I like it. It's different, it's dangerous, it's edgy. Go Spiders!



Utah's college teams have plenty of identity problems. The University of Utah is (are?) the Utes. What the *#$% is a Ute? I guess it's some sort of Native American. Gee, let's see….how many Native Americans are left in Utah now? Compared to Mormons? It doesn't even look right when you see it print: Utah Utes. It looks like a typo that the spell checker didn’t catch. And Utah State isn't much better: The Aggies. Oooooh, now I'm frightened. I can just imagine their opponents before the big game:
"Yeah, we're going up against the Aggies tonight."
"Aggies. Yeah, that reminds me – I need to call my grandma after the game."

Have you ever looked at Southern Utah University's mascot, the T-Bird?:

Did you look at it. Ok. Now, is it me, or does SUU need to add a zoology class to its curriculum? Isn't that an eagle? Looks like an eagle to me.

Jeez, I guess if you just add a bolt of lightning to any old bird you can have a "Thunderbird."
Plus, SUU plays in the Mid-Continent Conference. Eh? Mid-continent?. That's kind of generic. You just have to be located somewhere in between the edges of the continent to be included? (Another team in the Mid-Continent Conference is IUPUI, but that's a whole 'nother story!)


The University of Idaho has the Vandals, New York University has the Violets, Sweet Briar College has the Vixens, and the University of Akron has the Zips. Those are at least worth an honorable mention. Pacific University has the Boxers, which makes me think of boxer shorts, until you realize it's just a cuter name for a bulldog.

What's in a nickname?

As promised, here is part one of my article about college team nicknames. The introduction that accompanied the original article is no longer valid or appropriate, so if it seems like it starts after the beginning, it's because, um, it does.






One of the first nicknames that springs to mind is from Texas Christian University. TCU is known as the "Horned Frogs." Hah. While other colleges get to be the Tigers or the Spartans or something else tough, these guys get to be…erm….toads. Horned ones at that. I'm sure there really is an animal named the horned frog, and it may be very feisty and tough, but this one just leads us down the freeway of making fun.


Next up are some of those smaller schools that got put at the back of the line when it came to handing out names.
The Dayton Flyers. Look, they don't even get a mascot. Just the words. Now, personally, I like the name "Flyers." It gives the impression of speed and action. But come on, can't one of their art design students come up with some sort of flying lightning bolt so they can at least have a symbol?


The Temple owls. Ok, it's bad enough to be an owl, but do they have to be such a dorky looking owl?



How about the Tulsa Golden Hurricanes? Their logo looks like someone spilled cornbread mix on it and forgot to clean it up. To make matters worse, look at their mascot:



You could be the Tulane Green Wave. Green Wave? Have you ever seen a green wave? (I hear the Atlantic Ocean sometimes looks green, but Tulane University is located in New Orleans, which is not on the Atlantic Coast.) Is the Gulf Coast green? I just know I wouldn't want to get hit by a green wave!

Hey, there's a pattern here: Temple, Tulsa, Tulane. Maybe if your small college starts with a "T" you're obligated to have a weird nickname.




If you went to Syracuse University you'd be an Orangemen. Like the Dayton Flyers, they don't even have a mascot or symbol. In fact, they don't have the words, they just have a color.



St. John's University, like it's fellow New York school Syracuse, has a nickname that isn't really anything. They used to be the Redmen, but the PC police pulled them over and made them change it to… the Red Storm.



At least they have a lightning bolt!


That's it for now. More tomorrow.

The Big Dance

On Sunday, March 14, the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee will announce the 65 teams participating in the 2010 NCAA men's basketball tournament. March Madness begins!


I get a kick out of the teams' nicknames and mascots in college sports. In fact, I wrote an article a few years ago about the wacky world of nicknames. I found a link to it, but none of the images were still there.

In the next few days I shall re-print the article in its entirety, complete with full-color illustrations and up to date links. With permission of the author, of course.

Hyphenated Americans

I try not to be overtly political in this blog, but occasionally it seeps into my keyboard, and - well, it just comes out.

There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all... The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities, an intricate knot of German-Americans, Irish-Americans, English-Americans, French-Americans, Scandinavian-Americans or Italian-Americans, each preserving its separate nationality, each at heart feeling more sympathy with Europeans of that nationality, than with the other citizens of the American Republic... There is no such thing as a hyphenated American who is a good American. The only man who is a good American is the man who is an American and nothing else.

This is a quote from an American President. Can you guess which one? I'll give you a moment.


Theodore Roosevelt said it in a speech in 1915. His reasons had more to do with alliances forming in World War I than anything.

He said this almost 100 years ago, and yet, in some ways parts of it still ring true.