What's In A Name? NCAA Bans Schools with "Indian" Names

The PC police are at it again. In the August 11 Wall Street Journal Opinion, Kenneth Woodward gives us the news that the NCAA wants to ban Schools from participating in inter collegiate games if they have names that are derived from Indian tribes, sounds like an Indian name or has a mascot that appears "Indian".

It's almost too ridiculous.

Last week, the National Collegiate Athletic Association announced that it would ban the use of Native American team names and mascots in all NCAA-sponsored postseason tournaments. If a team turns up wearing uniforms with words like "Indians," "Braves" or similar nicknames the association deems "hostile and abusive," that team will be shown the locker-room door. Surely I was not the only reader who noticed that this edict came out of the NCAA's headquarters in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Yes, you read it right. Of course, the first theing that came to mind was also all those cities, towns and states, not to mention rivers, hills, roads, parks and numerous other places in the US that are named for American Indian tribes. I grew up in a county called "Wyandotte" after the Wyandot Indian tribe in the state of Kansas named after the "Kansa". I now live in Missouri, a name derived from the Indian word for the area. Of course, there is Potawatamie after the Potawatamie tribe and Osowatamie after the Osowatamie tribe. Half the schools in the area have Indian names, Indian named teams and Indian mascots.

Of course, we also have the Kansas City Chiefs who play at Arrowhead stadium. Their mascot is KC Wolf, but you can still see the full dressed Indian in a war bonnet at the major games, riding a pinto horse. And the supporters club are the infamous "Red Coats".

According to the NCAA, this is racist and stereo typing.

Oh, I can't forget that I attended school in places like Miami County, named after the Miami indians that were settled there after Jackson flushed them out of the south east.

There are simply too many places and too many representations to do this effectively, but our erstwhile collegiate PC police think they are going to do it.

Why do we use Indian names for places and things? Maybe because, shockingly, these folks were here first and had already named places and things? It was much more convenient for "pilgrims" and "pioneers" to refer to these places by names already in place, particularly when the same folks that gave those names were still in the area and we needed to talk to them and to deal with them on the way to the other places named by and for them.

You understand, had we just thrown out all the Indian names and renamed all of these places and things in our native languages (English, German, French, etc) people would be complaining that we did not honor our Indian heritage or history.

Well, Florida State has decided they aren't going to lay down for it:

Already, one university president, T.K. Weatherall of Florida State, one of 18 colleges and universities on the Association's blacklist, is threatening to take legal action--and I hope he does. Florida State's athletic teams are called the Seminoles, and the university says it has permission from that tribe in Florida to use that name. Not good enough, counters Charlotte Westerhaus, the NCAA's new vice president for "diversity and inclusion." "Other Seminole tribes," she claims, "are not supportive."

Is it me or is this a bunch of Bull S****?

I'm waiting for NCAA to bow down to PETA demands that using animal names and mascots is demeaning and paints a bad picture of misunderstood animals. Like my old high school whose team was the Bears (not that it made them ferocious or winners, mind you, our team stunk if I remember correctly). Then there are the K-State Panthers.

Hey...maybe the Daughters of the Revolution should complain about the use of the Minuteman as a team name and mascot. I mean, doesn't that demean our history?

Of course, this can get really stupid:

Perhaps the most craven decision was that of St. John's University, which changed from the Red Men to the Red Storm. In both its former and current names, "Red" referred to the color of the St. John's uniforms--not to Native Americans, of which there are very few in Queens, N.Y.

Hey, maybe we can ban the color red altogether since it has bad connotations for American Indians, bolshevik revolution and, of course, the most egregious of all, those stupid red shirts with Che "I'm a murdering scumbag worshipped by millions of birkenstock wearing collegiate idiots" Guevera?

You know, I almost forgot, the state of Delaware and the Delaware river will have to be renamed along with Kentucky, the Dakotas, Utah, Wyoming, the Huron Lake, Michigan... I can go on and on and on.

So can Mr. Woodward.

As Forrest Gump would say, "Stupid is as stupid does."