Mascot Madness, Part II
Indians and Christians Bite The Dust
As exemplified by the eccentric assortment of mascots described yesterday in Mascot Madness, Part I, these representatives can be the embodiment of school spirit and pride and the source of good clean fun as well as easy targets for ridicule and mockery.
This second mascots posting, however begins on a more somber and controversial note, the recent forced retirement of Chief Illiniwek, the mascot of the University of Illinois, and the controversy over the use of Native Americans as mascots in general.
Thankfully, that story and those stemming from it are equally easy to ridicule, and, in any case, the discussion will soon regress to examples of especially weird mascots.
Hail and Farewell To The Chief
In 2005, the NCAA banned American Indian mascots deemed “hostile or abusive” from its postseason tournaments. At that time, at least 18 universities had such mascots, most notably Florida State’s Seminole and Illinois’ Illini.
No one familiar with the NCAA will be surprised to learn that this ruling was a how-many-
angels-can-dance-on-the-head-of-a-pin1 sort of proclamation. For example, some schools using “Warrior” without attendant Indian symbols were not affected.2 And, the mighty “Braves” of North Carolina-Pembroke were exempted because, according to NCAA president Myles Brand, “the school’s student body has historically admitted a high percentage of American Indians and more than 20% of the students are American Indians.”
That sort of convoluted reasoning3 and the NCAA’s pseudo-righteousness in declaring that they would never interfere with a member school’s sovereign right to set its own policy on mascots while simultaneously banning the display of those mascots in postseason tournaments4 was reciprocated by capriciously pedantic arguments made by Chief Illiniwek’s supporters in hopes of sufficiently manipulating the semantics to designate the fake Chief a “symbol” of the University rather than its “mascot.” A couple of excerpts from a Chicago Tribune story which nicely covered the craziness, are instructive:
While that kind of legalistic bickering seems more a distraction than a legitimate debate, the NCAA is not exactly an exemplar of of moral clarity in such matters. It can be swayed.
Florida State University, in fact, won an exemption from the NCAA’s policy on Indian mascots5 because the Seminole Tribe of Florida supported it and the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma declared it wouldn’t oppose the mascot.6
Creating a special category of acceptable Indian mascots predicated on approval of that mascot by the relevant Indian tribe7 raises interesting questions for the future that don’t seem to have been addressed in any public forum. Does, for example, the Seminole Tribe of Florida have the right to withdraw its support later if the mascot’s behavior begins to annoy them, and, if so, would the NCAA be morally bound to ban the University’s use of the Seminole mascot at that time? Or, consider this scenario. Scoundrels, rabble rousers, or even your typical legitimate political radicals determined to revenge historic exploitation of the native Americans gain power among the Seminole leadership and threaten to reverse their stance toward the mascot and demand that the NCAA avenge this insult by forbidding the University’s use of the Seminole - unless the school forks over $100 million or so in reparations to the tribe, changes its name from Florida State University to Florida Seminole University, and opens a Graduate School Of Casino Science. Perhaps I’ve read too much Carl Hiaasen, but that seems pretty believable to me (and a better plot than the one in Nature Girl. Carl, if you’re out there, call me. We should talk.)
The NCAA ruling did lead, finally, to the termination of Chief Illiniwek’s tenure as mascot of the University of Illinois. A video of his last performance on 21 February 2007 during the game between Illinois and Michigan is available at Media: Chief Illiniwek’s Last Performance
Christian Persecution
Mascots with Indian themes, however, are hardly the only endangered emblematic species. Protestant fundamentalists also seem to be at risk.
Up until 1999, the mascot of Elon University’s 16 varsity sports teams was the Fightin’ Christians.8
In 1921, local sportswriters, making a clever play on the University’s founders, the Christian Church, dubbed Elon’s football team the “Christians.” The “Fightin’” portion of the moniker, according to the Wikipedia, “is said to have been coined by a sportswriter covering a contest in the 1930’s between Elon and nearby Guilford College, a Quaker school. .. The nickname was chosen due to Elon’s proximity to the Wake Forest Demon Deacons, and the Duke Blue Devils.”
Campus officials made the change from Fightin’ Christians because the historic link to the church is no longer apparent, causing puzzlement about the team name.9 Others felt that the original nickname was not universal enough for a team making the transition to Division I athletics. The specifics notwithstanding, a new mascot, the Phoenix, was adopted. The name, “Phoenix,” originated from the school’s historic rebuilding following a 1923 fire that destroyed almost the entire campus. Yep, that should clear up that puzzlement about the origin and significance of the team name.
Consequent to the nickname change, “Mr. E,” the bearded, barrel-chested figure with balled fists and a deacon’s hat who had represented the school was sent to mascot heaven, where he and The Chief have, no doubt, met and commiserated over their fates. The only graphic of Mr. E. I could find is displayed below alongside his replacement, the Phoenix. Also shown is the Nike Swoosh, which, it appears to my untutored eyes, shares a tad of the Phoenix’s designer DNA.
Not long after the demise of the “Fightin’ Christians,” there was a similar fatality (coincidence or copycat killer?).
Only a few miles from Heck Of A House, Wheaton College, a church-affiliated institution, decided that the Crusader had played its last season as representative of that school.
An explanation by Dr. Duane Litfin, Wheaton’s President, for the change that is so far-ranging, pompous, and self-righteous that the NCAA would have been proud to issue it, can still be found at Wheaton College Mascot Change.
In this dissertation, Duane invokes globalization, holy scripture, and the examples of Tiger Woods, Billy Graham, and Madonna (the one with the pointy bra). He specifically repudiates political correctness as motivation (Duane points out, in an admirably meaningless metaphor, hat he is “tone deaf to this sort of thinking”). On the same web site, Duane’s presidential predecessor endorses this effort by the school’s politically tone deaf leader by pleading for an outreach to local Muslims (no doubt a huge population segment in Wheaton, IL). One encounters an even richer vein of — well, I’m not sure how to categorize this so let’s just call it an even richer vein of irrefutable support and, not coincidentally, incomprehensible sentence construction from the Head Volleyball Coach, one Mrs Jennifer King Soderquist ‘77, who notes that
To which one can only reply, “Unh?” And lest one think that Wheaton College is content with a catchy phrase like enhance our reflection of His Kingdom, that web page originally ended with an audience participation PR effort urging readers to offer their personal recommendations for a new mascot. Among my favorites of the suggestions for a replacement for the Crusaders at the time were Martyrs (which earned my empathy based on my experience playing on a high school basketball team that “Martyrs” would have fit perfectly), Mascots (kind of generic I suppose but I’ve always enjoyed self-referential — uh — references), Whippoorwills (this must have been suggested by either a field ornithologist or one viciously cynical son of a gun), Cherubs (I suppose it’s bickering but wouldn’t Seraphim or Cherubim be more appropriately fearsome biblical choices?),10 Coco Beans (I could see why Mustard Seeds might work from Luke 13:18-21, but Coco Beans — not a clue), Prayer Warriors (as opposed to Prayer Crusaders?), Flames (perhaps to be used in conjunction with Martyrs?), and, of course, Wardrobes.
The ultimate choice, The Thunder, has the distinction of its own Wheaton College web page of biblical justification, which can be found at ~Scriptural Rationale for Thunder Mascot~. A brief excerpt provides a sense of the perspective:
Amen.
Previously
Mascot Madness, Part I
Next
Mascot Madness, Part III
Footnotes
- Funny that I should mention “Angels.” It turns out that, after a fierce internal debate, Meredith College, a private women’s college in Raleigh, NC, will stick with its Angel mascot after all. The athletic faculty had feared that “Angels” lacked a certain ferocity. “What are you going to say?” asked Greg Jarvis, Meredith’s sports information director. “Kill ‘em, Angels?” Clearly, these folks were not part of the hard core Southern Baptist flock that founded the school. We fundamentalists know all too well about Death Angels, Angels of Destruction, Avenging Angels, etc. For example, two angels destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19:1-29), another angel massacred 70,000 people to teach King David a lesson in humility (2 Kings 24:16), and still another angel defeated and killed an Assyrian army of (185,000 2 Kings 19:35). Not ferocious enough, indeed. ~back~
- This did not save the Marquette Warriors who are now the Golden Eagles ~back~
- Convoluted reasoning appears to be endemic to the Indian mascot issue. The first such nickname change took place in 1970 when the University of Oklahoma dropped “Big Red,” an Indian caricature. Shortly thereafter, the the Stanford Indians became the Stanford Cardinal - the color, not the bird. More recently, St. John’s University transformed their moniker from the Redmen to the Red Storm, which sounds as though it makes sense; here’s the kicker - the “Red” in both “Redmen” and “Red Storm” originally referenced “Red” the color (not so different from “Cardinal” the color) rather than “Red” the slang term for Native American. Or maybe it’s “Red” that is the problem. During the McCarthy anticommunist paranoia of the 50’s, Cincinnati’s baseball team officially changed its name from “Reds” to “Redlegs.” After reviewing a few such cases, one begins to sense the wisdom of mascot choices such as “Banana Slugs” and “Stormy Petrels.” ~back~
- The hypocrisy inherent in this argument will be readily apparent to anyone having dealt with an HMO that claims they would never interfere with the decisions of a doctor and a patient while refusing to pay for that healthcare. ~back~
- This is, of course, the origin of the oft-quoted aphorism, “In accordance with the rules and regulations of the NCAA, the only good Indian is a Seminole Indian ~back~
- The position of the Seminole tribes regarding the University of Illinois and Chief Illiniwek is unknown. ~back~
- Incidentally, my elder son, The Prodigal, is half Mayan and declares himself
ready to sell out his heritage to the highest bidderwilling to discuss his endorsement of an athletic mascot based on the Incan warriors contingent on the school retaining him as consultant to assure that the mascot thus created is one that shows respect for his people. And his fees are reasonable. ~back~ - I should note that official nicknames are scant protection from infidels. During the year I spent as an Oklahoma Christian College Golden Eagle, fans of the opposing teams would routinely start chants on the lines of “Crucify The Christians,” to which we followers of Jesus would wittily retort, “You’re Going To Hell.” Ah, I miss witnessing. ~back~
- Other schools, one notes, seem blissfully unconcerned about and perhaps even desirous of some puzzlement over the origins of their mascots. ~back~
- See Footnote #1 re “Angels” ~back~
Mascot Madness, Part II…
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