A couple of alumni offered to donate a cool $2M to the school if they changed the name back to the Warriors. Now, I can see that a Native American sports mascot might be offensive (Willie Wampum WAS pretty tacky), but they certainly could have made it a more 'generic' warrior. How about an ancient Greek warrior? (Our local high schools have Spartans and Lancers as their mascots. Since those guys are all dead, none of them can protest.)
So...what is the final decision? The Marquette Gold! The Marquette Gold? Yes, Gold. They have selected a COLOR as their mascot.
From the Marquette University website:
Further, data collected in an online survey last fall of opinions and attitudes indicated that even 10 years after its introduction, the Golden Eagles nickname, logo and mascot have not generated with the Marquette community a strong sense of pride or identity. In the survey, the terms respondents most often used to describe the Golden Eagles nickname are boring (57 percent), weak (55 percent) and common (52 percent).
So, they think "Gold" is not boring, weak or common?
Cheesh. What will be next? The Milwaukee Puce? The Madison Magentas?
Update: Great posts from Marquette Warrior....read the "Trustees Turn Chicken" post.
1 comment:
Well, in Quebec, the French speaking Universities have a long tradition of using colors. For example, the Universite de Laval is the Rouge et Or (Red and Gold) and the Unversite de Sherbrooke is the Vert et Or (Green and Gold) and I don't see what the problem with that is. They also have a mascot that's not named (I believe it's a fox for Sherbrooke).
I think there's a legitimate reason behind the political correctness. I mean, the Redskins?? You'll never see a "Whiteman" mascot, right? And also, to be consistently portrayed as an aggressive ethnic group, especially when such stereotypes were used to justify wholesale massacres and reservations, I can see why their complaints are legitimate. It goes towards an acknowledgement of wrong-doing in the past.
Next, I hope they either stop naming cars after groups of people, or start being a little more diverse in the names chosen. I'm lookin' at you, Jeep Cherokee, VW Taureg. The minute the Honda WASP or the Toyota Yankee, I'm buying it.
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