Posted on 05/05/2005 9:36:11 AM PDT by GSWarrior
RACINE - Local Marquette University graduates Wednesday night declared, "Go Gold," but not after they asked, "Go what?" The private Milwaukee university's Board of Trustees voted to change its nickname from Golden Eagles to the Marquette Gold Wednesday afternoon after years of uproar over a 1994 name change that dropped the school's old name, the Warriors.
Marquette had been known as the Warriors since 1954. The school's former mascot, an American Indian named Willie Wampum, was nixed in 1971 over concerns that it was offensive.
But the new name didn't get much more support Wednesday night in the Racine area.
"I think (the school's new name) seems a little obscure," said Beth Sucharda, a 1971 Marquette graduate who lives with her husband, also a Marquette grad, in Racine.
"We weren't crazy that they left the Warriors behind," she said, "But I can't say (the change) is better. It just doesn't seem like anything. You can't sink your teeth into a color."
Mike Armgardt, who graduated from Marquette in 1978 with an English degree, said the school should have stuck with Golden Eagles or considered Warriors over Gold.
"We always supported the name Warriors," said Armgardt, who lives in Sturtevant, "but I don't know if they should go back, either. I still think of (the school) as the Warriors, and the Golden Eagles worked. I just don't know why you would change to anything else."
In Wednesday's action, the Board of Trustees unanimously voted down an attempt by alumni to return Marquette to the nickname it bore during a golden run that saw it win the NCAA men's basketball championship in 1977 under legendary coach Al McGuire.
"We live in a different era than when the Warriors nickname was selected in 1954," the Rev. Robert Wild, Marquette president, said at a news conference. "The perspective of time has showed us that our actions, intended or not, can offend others."
After speaking with American Indian leaders, board chairman John Bergstrom, a business administration graduate in 1967, said he changed his mind on supporting the Warriors' return.
"I became convinced that the Warriors nickname could not be separated from past imagery," he said.
The most recent debate over the school's nickname was sparked last May at commencement, when board vice chair Wayne Sanders said he and another unnamed trustee would offer $1 million each to the school to restore the Warriors name.
Wild immediately rejected the offer but agreed to have the board discuss it.
A student group called Students for Warriors latched onto the idea, posted a Web site and eventually gathered 900 signatures of students in favor of a return to the past.
The co-chairman of the group, Dan Maciejewski, 19, said he grew up watching Marquette basketball, and the glory days were when the school had a different nickname.
Discounting a Final Four appearance by the Golden Eagles in 2003, he said, "the vast majority of that tradition came when we were the Warriors."
In contrast, more than half of some 9,000 students, alumni and staff responded in an online poll in November that the Golden Eagles nickname was "boring," "weak," or "common," the university said.
But students on campus were not thrilled with Gold, either.
"Marquette Gold?" chimed students Jaime Bohte, 20, and Tas Bhikhapurwala, 21, when they were told the news.
"It's not a mascot, it's a color," said Bohte, an accounting
sophomore.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Golden Eagles is a fairly new name, chosen to replace the longstanding Warriors appellation. The new (at the time) president of Marquette thought that Warriors was too "war-like" and possibly insulting to Indians -- although no Indian had ever complained. Marquette alums have never liked Golden Eagles and there has been a controversy about it for about 10 years.
They are running a poll on Gold and 93% of the participants HATE the name. As a talk show personality said this AM, you couldn't get 93% of a group of people to agree on a sunshiney day! He conjectured that perhaps when all is said and done, everyone will be happy to go back to Golden Eagles. Warriors is definitely off the table. LOL
How about the Stanford "Cardinal"? Same thing.
LOL. It'll never fly. The use of the name Friars is too "Catholic" and probably would make Jews, Muslims, and Protestants uncomfortable. Diversity and all that!
They should name themselves ther "Marquette McGuires"
Friars? That sounds awfully religious. Turn on the ACLU signal so that leftist lawyers can stop it before it starts.
Willie's been the change booth guy at the local Injun casino since then...the work's steadier.
Stanford called themselves the Stanford Indians for over 100 years. Now they use a TREE as a mascot. A stupid dancing TREE. It looks like a Christmas tree, however, so I suppose that will be banished soon.
How can the California Bears even chant, "Give 'em the Axe, the axe, the axe" "Right in the neck, the neck, the neck" when there is no Indian dancing around anymore? It makes no sense.
"Marquette McGuires" sounds good. Although someone may equate them with the Molly Maguires and consider it insulting to coal miners, or union guys, or thugs.
How about the Marquette Gamblers? Would that not honor Indian heritage?
Anyone here remember the Hooloovoo? (a super-intelligent shade of the color blue) Now there's a mascot that's out of this world... :-)
I thought it was Washington State which wanted to adopt the banana slug mascot.
Well, if you'd ever lived out there you'd know how fearsome those banana slugs are! Eeeeeeewwwwwww! Yuck!
Another really bad name was my Jr. High -- the Washington Jr. High Horned Toads. They tore the whole school down about 25 years ago, so nobody has to live with that one anymore!
WAshington State should have adopted the banana slug, but Santa Cruz really did. I think there ar emore banana slugs in WA, however. Least ways, that was MY experience. Meet one of those guys on a trail and it ruins your whole day! Ugh!
It's no big deal....just about college sports.
How bout the Marquette Coquettes? :>)
Has a ring, doesn't it?
(PS: I'm a Cincy Bearcat Grad.)
I believe the Long Beach State University nickname - at least the baseball team - is "Dirtbags". Is that PC?
Really? In what context? Most racially offensive team name ever? Who won the 1967 Illinois state high school basketball championship? (They played the Cobden Appleknockers, for the most absurdly named pairing ever).
How about the Marquette Equivocators? Isn't the reference to an equivocator in the drunken porter's monologue in Macbeth (Act II, Scene III) supposed to be an allusion to the Jesuits?
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