The Washington, D.C., team in the National Football League has a new nickname. A lot of hullabaloo about the name change stirred up some interest, but the mascot name itself turned out pretty bland.
After being called the Washington Redskins for more than 80 years and the Washington Football Team for two seasons, the team is now named the Commanders.
Numerous college and pro teams have eliminated nicknames and mascots over time that were considered undesirable or offensive.
Arkansas State dropped its Indians name in 2008 to become the Red Wolves. It was the Dartmouth Indians until 1974 when the school changed its name to The Big Green.
In Major League baseball, the Cleveland Indians adopted the new nickname last year of the Guardians.
The Cleveland team in the National Football League has brown and orange uniforms and has long been known as the Cleveland Browns.
That name was not inspired by jersey colors but was chosen to honor the franchise’s first coach, Paul Brown.
Salt Lake City’s team in the NBA is known as the Utah Jazz. That’s a strange name in a city and state where it’s hard to find anybody playing jazz music.
But team owners decided not to change the nickname when the New Orleans Jazz moved to Salt Lake City in 1978.
Jazz is a peculiar nickname for a team in Utah, but there are more bizarre nicknames than that.
The University of Arkansas-Monticello calls its men’s sports teams the Boll Weevils and its women’s teams the Cotton Blossoms.
But first prize for unusual sports nicknames would have to go to Scottsdale Community College in Arizona. Athletic teams there are named the Fighting Artichokes.
When I was growing up, we went to a wooden green ballpark to watch a semi-pro baseball team called the Springhill Sports.
We rode our bikes in the ruts of gravel roads to the games. Most of the players worked part-time at the paper mill and played Big Eight League teams from places like Minden, Homer and Ruston.
A friend’s dad invited me to go to Shreveport to watch that town’s team play in its huge ballpark. I thought at the time it probably looked a lot like Yankee Stadium.
Shreveport was in the Texas League with teams from big cities like Fort Worth, Tulsa, San Antonio, and Beaumont.
The team from Shreveport with the spick and span uniforms was called the Sports just like the little minor league team in Springhill.
Even as a kid, I thought having baseball teams 50 miles apart and both named the Sports showed a serious lack of creativity.
Northwestern students were much more imaginative back in 1923 when there was a contest to name the school’s sports teams.
A $10 prize was offered for the individual who submitted the nickname that would be chosen by the student body. Two students split the prize, because they both suggested the name Demons.
Northwestern’s teams have been the Demons ever since, and it is a unique nickname. No other university in the country is named just the Demons although Wake Forest is the Demon Deacons, Duke is the Blue Devils and Arizona State is the Sun Devils.
A few church-going folks have objected to the name Demons through the decades. But even most of them agree it is better than some of the other names that were proposed like Sharks, Groundhogs, Cyclops, Professors, Wasps, Bloodhounds, and Cannon Balls.
Presidents and athletic directors who get complaints about the Demons nickname occasionally might also remind folks who don’t like it that the school’s sports teams could have been named The Fighting Artichokes.
REPRINTED FROM THE NATCHITOCHES TIMES