An outsider's take on Marquette's new nickname

Editor's note: Marquette officials must be readers of Czabe's column. Wednesday afternoon, they reversed course and dropped the nickname, "Gold." Read the official release here.

{image1} If only the "Man from U.N.C.L.E." were actually real, he might be able to do something about this.

Who is the "Man from U.N.C.L.E."?

He's an all powerful commissioner in sports, dedicated to settling disputes, arbitrating logo usage, approving nicknames, and signing off on all uniform changes. This mythical authority was created when I was discussing one of the endless "uniform" stories that come up in sports with Bob and Brian on Lazer 103.

Brian, being a sports fan with a keen eye for -- and enduring interest in -- stopping stupid nicknames, jumped at the chance to be "The Man" whenever these issues arose. Taking our cue from the 1960s TV show "Man from UNCLE", we made our acronym ...

Uniforms, Nicknames, Colors, Logos, Emblems.

Now, if only such a man could be elected and given full authority on such matters. If so, he would have immediately stricken down the MU Board of Trustee's farce-inducing decision to go from bad to worse with the Marquette sports nickname.

Yeah, technically, there's precedent for a monochromatic nickname for a team. The Stanford Cardinal traveled the exact same road, losing "Indians" for the deep red color that characterizes their uniforms. How's that working out? See lots of Stanford gear walking around the mall?

The there are the Cincinnati Reds, the Cleveland Browns, the Crimson Tide and the Khmer Rouge ... oh wait, never mind on that last one. I looked it up, and it's not a team. But all of them have tradition and history on their side.

This nickname smacks of an Arena League team at best. More likely a traveling girls softball squad, or dance team, or box lacrosse club. It's a name that screams rollerball, or low-level pro wrestling.

It sucks so hard, it could suck a golf ball through a garden hose.

When the "Warriors" moniker fell to the politically correct tide in the 1990s, its replacement -- "Golden Eagles" -- seemed at least tolerable in the abstract. Still, to me, it always had the ring of what your kid's elementary school nickname might be.

"Let's go to the cafeteria for the lunchtime rally kids, and make sure to proudly wear your 'Golden Eagles' t-shirts to show that elementary school pride!"

I sensed that Golden Eagles never really took root as a name, on principle alone. Dumping the "Warriors" name and theme, felt good to the PC crowd for about a month, but the PC crowd hardly ever roots for sports. That left the majority of MU athletic supporters quietly grumbling for years.

It would be like owning a dog, and then one day having the county come by and say that the name was somehow "offensive" and they had taken it upon themselves to re-name your dog something they thought was more acceptable.

What was once "Bruiser" (far too aggressive and "hurtful" of a name, the county dog catcher insisted) was now renamed "Splashes." The dog was just the same in every way, only you now had to see that name "Splashes" on his food dish, collar, doghouse and everything else.

While you could certainly call him "Bruiser" all you liked while fetching sticks in your backyard, everyone else in the neighborhood was now calling him "Splashes." "Hey, Bill. How's Splashes doing? I saw him in the park the other day with you?"

Wouldn't you be just a little bit pissed off?

Over the last few years, an increasingly vocal and influential element of the MU alumni base began agitating to bring back the Warriors nickname, only this time stripping it of the originally offensive Native American images.

Such a race-neutral compromise on the simmering dispute would solve most complaints, and it's even been done before in sports with Golden State of the NBA. That's when the "feel good" crowd was forced to twist their own logic into a spaghetti bowl of denial and dishonesty.

I was forwarded a lengthy and unintentionally comical e-mail "defending" the decision that was sent by the school to its students and alumni. The "defense" of the decision was only slightly better than Custer's "defense" at Little Big Horn.

Oops. Did I offend anybody?

The email basically admitted that:

1. The name "Golden Eagles" sucked.

2. Everybody wanted "Warriors" reinstated. And

3. Jibber, jabber, yikkity, yakkety, blah, blah, blah, sensitivity, process, committee, future, vision, bold, blah, new era, yah yah yah - we just did what we wanted.

"As an alumnus of the 1960s, it is probably pretty obvious where I stood on the Warriors question when we opened our discussions," said John Bergstrom, chair of the Board of Trustees. "But after my own conversations with tribal leaders, I became convinced that the Warriors nickname could not be separated from past imagery. As the Board moved deeper into this process, it became clear to all of us that as stewards of the university's mission, we had to be guided by conscience, not emotion."

Translation: "I caved."

And then if dishonesty wasn't enough, how about the utterly shameless spin. Here's a real gem from a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story about the fallout. "Trustee Anne A. Zizzo, president of Zizzo Group Advertising and Public Relations in Milwaukee, said trustees wrestled with a lot of different feelings over the past year. "Personally, I wanted to be sure the discussion was thoughtful and that we reached out to different stakeholders," she said. "We expected the debate to unfold just the way it did."

Oh really, Ms. Zizzo? You expected there to be an instant 93% disapproval rate of the new nickname? Talk about a woman who should have no say whatsoever in choosing a team nickname. Look at her own! Zizzo? What is she? A character from Cat In the Hat? And she's a public relations expert? What ever happened to the "listen to the public" aspect of PR?

Here's the basic flow chart on deciding if a nickname and logo scheme is any good. Ask yourself first: is it traditional? If it can't be traditional, it should at least be local. If it can't be local, then it should at least be cool. If it can't even be cool, then at least it should lend itself to a cool looking mascot. If you can't even have a cool mascot, then by all means, just make sure not invite scorn and humiliation.

"The Gold" is officially 0-5.

Clearly, this decision cannot stand. It must not. But how do you make a small cabal of such serious and sensitive people like the MU Board of Trustees climb down from their collective high horse?

Mere shame and harassment won't do the trick. They can always just retreat to their own protected circles of academia and pat each other on the back for their do-goodin' ways. No, the only way is to turn the sword of political incorrectness back against them.

Here's how. Make "The Gold" as offensive as possible.

There are several ways. First of all, if we're talking about the gold rush that helped speed the conquering of the west by the white man, then by god this nickname is even more offensive than Warriors! It's a veritable deification of the greed that slaughtered thousands of natives and drove them from their land.

Better yet, is my idea for a mascot tandem. "Chingy and Blingy." Two dudes, straight from 'da hood, wearing all kinds of mad chains and ice, selling the best weed on the street. You know, "The Gold."

Fans can help agitate the offensive possibilities with signs at games such as "We're Gonna Rain A Golden Shower On Your Face!" When campus security tries to take away your sign, make sure to take your fight all the way through the student council, on up to the Supreme Court if necessary. And be really loud about your rights to support your team being trampled at every step of the way.

If all else fails, anybody who writes a sizeable check to their alma mater every year, needs to get writer's cramp until this joke is undone. I imagine that financial warfare campaign is already beginning.

If enough of the money pool evaporates over this, then watch how quickly the Board of Trustees jettisons their high minded principle, for the very low minded bottom line.