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Postby Water Pony » Sat Aug 06, 2005 8:12 am

Kevin's Column today goes after the Redskins:
Banning despicable mascots a capital idea
But NFL needs to join colleges in fight, scrap Redskins' nickname
01:23 AM CDT on Saturday, August 6, 2005

By late Friday afternoon, the headline for the lead story on the Associated Press sports wire read: Florida State to Challenge Ban on Mascots.

It referred to that university's decision to challenge an announcement earlier Friday, when the NCAA said American Indian nicknames and mascots would not be allowed in any of its postseason tournaments. Florida State's teams are called the Seminoles.

Guess what the third headline on the AP sports wire at that moment read? Musgrave Brings Fresh Offense to Redskins.

It referred to Bill Musgrave, the new quarterbacks coach for the NFL franchise in the nation's capital.

Had I been allowed to concoct such a perfect coincidence, I couldn't have.

It was good to see college sports' governing body finally make a move toward eliminating imagery that American Indians find offensive. Colleges and universities exist, ostensibly, to educate. Respect for people of color, and of different religions and ways of life, is a lesson that still needs to be taught in this country. The NCAA's act was another step in that direction.

But the biggest leap that can be made in sports in this continuing education struggle is for the professional football team that I grew up rooting for in Washington, D.C., (Sect. 312 of RFK Stadium) to do the right thing: scrap what is absolutely the most derogatory, degrading, despicable nickname in all of athletics.

Merriam-Webster defines Washington's nickname as a "noun, usually offensive" for American Indian. What an understatement.

It is the same as having a team named by a slur for any other racial or ethnic group.

That's why it needs to go immediately. It should've been gone long ago.

As if the insult isn't enough, the only reason the club is holding on to its nickname after all these years is to make money. It doesn't want to surrender the now trademarked nickname for fear of losing who knows how many millions of dollars in paraphernalia sales. It would rather thumb its nose at American Indian groups and individuals who've pleaded for it to find a new nickname.

It is even hunkered down in a court now, though not for the first time, trying hold on to its lousy vestige of yesteryear. A U.S. Court of Appeals agreed last month that American Indian groups have the right to sue the team on the basis that its nickname violates federal trademark law by disparaging American Indians. A federal judge two years ago ruled in the team's favor, somehow ignoring the federal trademark law prohibiting offensive trademarks that was passed in 1946.

At a state level, California lawmakers are weighing a bill that would ban the use of Washington's utterly offensive nickname for teams in their public schools. This shouldn't, however, have to come to court challenges and legislation. Washington need not take a cue from the NCAA, either. The NFL ought to do that by ordering its franchise to change its name.

What really should happen is simple: Washington should take a cue from all of the colleges that voluntarily dumped American Indian nicknames in favor of more nonbelligerent monikers.

Syracuse did it, Marquette did it, St. John's did it, to name a few.

And guess what? Their fans still buy those schools' T-shirts and caps and bobbleheads. All they had to do was go out and purchase all the new stuff to replace their suddenly turned collectibles.

What is Florida State – or the Midwestern State Indians in Wichita Falls, Texas, where the Cowboys trained for a spell – worried about? What are Washington and the Kansas City Chiefs worried about? What are the Atlanta Braves worried about?

This is just unadulterated obstinance.

This isn't the first time Washington's franchise embraced as tradition something that was insulting to an entire group of people. As the southernmost team in the NFL for so many years, sitting just below the Mason-Dixon Line, it dressed itself up to appeal to the Southern market.

That included having its band play "Dixie" before every home game. That lasted until the early '60s, when my father convinced them it was bad for business because it was insulting to the large number of black season-ticket holders like him.

There isn't unfortunately a critical mass of American Indian ticket holders, even though so many "Americans" like to tout some percentage of "Indian" in their blood, to wield such an appealing argument to the bottom line. If there were, you could bet we wouldn't be discussing this problem still.

The other thing Washington's current owners need to understand is that Shakespeare line about a rose. By any other name, they still own Washington's favorite team. And the Cowboys will still be Washington's most-hated rivals.

E-mail kblackistone@dallasnews.com
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Postby EastStang » Sat Aug 06, 2005 9:47 am

I'm sorry but I have to disagree with the writer. The Redskins have for almost 30 years adopted the very distinguished logo of an indian. No Cleveland Indian Chief Wampum. The Redskin marching band has for the most part surrendered their feathers except the band leader. The Redskinettes look like every other cheeleading corps in the NFL (at least they have younger ones now). Yes, Redskins paraphanalia is about the third or fourth highest sellers in the NFL behind Dallas and Oakland. And lets face it would the Redksins/Cowboys rivalry be as colorful if they were the Federals, Swampcats, or Senators? Its kind of like the current GEICO ads in which Cavemen are supposedly offended because they are portrayed in a negative light. Many indian tribes for which teams are named are not even in existence any more and the only way their presence on earth is remotely recognized is because some college named their team after them. Indian tribes are the only indiginous group in this country allowed to maintain separate sovereignty and yet ask for greater rights than the rest of us. I would have no problem if an NFL team wanted to be the Rednecks, Crackers, Goobers, Honkeys, or any other derogatory term for white people.
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Postby couch 'em » Sat Aug 06, 2005 2:10 pm

that brings up a question I've been pondering for a while: "How long before it will be acceptable to use 'Nazis' and 'Communists' or 'Soviets' as sports teams?" We have trojans, vikings, etc etc, will it be decades or centuries before we see the Nazis?
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Postby Charleston Pony » Sat Aug 06, 2005 5:16 pm

it's interesting to see Fla State on the list of endangered teams when I'm pretty sure I read the leader of the Seminole nation just came out last year in support of FSU keeping their mascot.
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Postby MustangSally » Sat Aug 06, 2005 10:43 pm

The Seminole Nation of FLORIDA has been in favor of FSU keeping the name, but the NCAA cites the Seminole nation of OKLAHOMA has complained.

This whole thing is stupid for 2 reasons: 1) why is the NCAA playing morality police on issues not related at all to the sports themselves. 2) the "new rules" are so easy to get around. So FSU's track team can't have a seminole head on their shorts at the NCAA championship? Big whoop, it'll still be garnet and gold, say FSU across the front, and I doubt there ever WAS a logo on their unis to begin with. Other than football helmets, what other uniforms include mascot names or logos? All the football hoopla with the chopping arms and indian on horseback? Not addressed at all in these rules.
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Postby PK » Sun Aug 07, 2005 1:22 am

The indian on horseback is addressed as it is the mascot and that is one of the things banded, but I doubt it is ever used for anything but football games and the NCAA does not have any D-1 football tournaments. This is all smoke and mirrors. They can placate the vocal minority that has been complaining by saying "see what we have done", but in reality the FSU's of the college athletic world really won't be significantly affected at all.
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Postby Roach » Sun Aug 07, 2005 9:51 am

PK wrote: .... Does this mean that Florida State will have to alter their helmets in bowl games to comply with the NCAA's new regulations? Absurd!
I may be total wrong here, but if I understand things correctly, the Bowl Series Championship games are not NCAA tournaments nor are any of the other bowl games.... [/quote]This, to me, is the most absurd aspect of this whole thing.

Yes, in its simplest form, I can see the NCAA's thinking behind this ruling. There are about a zillion other things that it should address first, but if it wants to take a step toward improved racial sensitivity by doing this .... fine. I don't see how this helps much, but whatever -- the NCAA feels good about it, will kick its PR machine into overdrive, spinning it for the world so the NCAA seems like the world's most politically correct, thoughtful, sensitive folks on the planet this side of UNICEF. If it helps them sleep at night, go for it.

But the whole reason they OK'ed this decision, in my opinion, was because it didn't apply to football, which of course is where all the money is made. And because they couldn't pull their heads out long enough to set up a playoff tournament, they can appease folks by "Seminoles" or "Braves" at next year's NCAA Tiddly Winks final. "WE MADE A GESTURE THAT NOBODY WILL NOTICE! CONGRATULATE US!"

Quick, someone notify the Nobel Prize folks -- they might want to add the NCAA braintrust as a last-minute write-in.
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Postby KnuckleStang » Wed Aug 10, 2005 9:24 am

On the list of mascots in question, the only one that strikes me as questionable is the Southeastern Oklahoma State "Savages." It was a "hostile and abusive" term back in colonial times, anyway. They can probably do better than that.

The rest is stupid.
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Postby SMU Football Blog » Wed Aug 10, 2005 9:59 am

Roach wrote:
PK wrote: .... Does this mean that Florida State will have to alter their helmets in bowl games to comply with the NCAA's new regulations? Absurd!
I may be total wrong here, but if I understand things correctly, the Bowl Series Championship games are not NCAA tournaments nor are any of the other bowl games....
This, to me, is the most absurd aspect of this whole thing. [/quote]

That is correct. The NCAA has no control over Div. I-A college football's postseason, which is probably the most absurd thing in all of sports. Technically, as far as the NCAA is concerned, all bowl games are post-season exhibitions. I guess the NCAA is too busy running tournaments in all the other divisions to determine the national champion in college football.
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Postby EastStang » Wed Aug 10, 2005 12:34 pm

The NCAA does have championships for 1-AA, II, III, etc. in football and other sports. That is where this gets a bit insideous, in that smaller schools with traditions as rich or richer than some of the BCS factories get tagged. So a school like Alcorn State won't get for example home field advantage even if it is higher seeded in the 1-AA championships, unless it changes its name. (Alcorn State is of course a traditionally African American school and has adopted the name "Braves").
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Postby Red+BlueDude » Wed Aug 10, 2005 3:26 pm

EastStang: Like you (I think), I'm a Redskins fan. And as much as it pains me to say it, Blackistone just might be right about the team's name. The notion that "Braves" or "Chiefs" should be changed is ridiculous — those are titles of a position, not a race, equal to calling a team the "Warriors" or "Kings." I'd hate to see Washington switch names, but if there's one team that COULD be presented as one that needs to change, that's it.

To me, one of the most entertaining parts of this whole thing is that Florida State's president mentioned the possibility of painting the Seminoles logo on the 50-yard line about three times its current size. If the NCAA can make big bucks by televising games and hocking FSU gear, I would think that would be a more-than-appropriate middle-finger salute.
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Postby jtstang » Wed Aug 24, 2005 6:38 pm

Well, didn't take long for the NCAA to roll over on this one.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2005/basketball/ncaa/08/23/ncaa.mascots.ap/index.html
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Postby MrMustang1965 » Wed Aug 24, 2005 9:10 pm

jtstang wrote:Well, didn't take long for the NCAA to roll over on this one.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2005/basketball/ncaa/08/23/ncaa.mascots.ap/index.html
Amazing what some lawyers and an alumni base can do, isn't it? Too bad SMU hasn't taken this initiative to sue the NCAA. Lord knows we've got enough lawyers from here that could do the job!
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Postby abezontar » Wed Aug 24, 2005 9:46 pm

Yes, but how many of them care enough about the school to want to do something to help it? If we have to rely on the graduates in the last tne years there probably aren't too many.
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