They Get Nicked Despite Name

A nickname can be super-important to a team or a program. You have to ask yourself, would the Yankees have swept everything before them if they were not Murderers’ Row and the Bronx Bombers? Would Geronimo have struck such terror if his name had been Clarence?

Long before there was a Dream Team in Barcelona for the basketball Olympics, there was a Dream Backfield for the University of Pittsburgh’s football squad.

Can anyone overplay what the designation Four Horsemen meant to the Notre Dame program and college football generically?

The Vow Boys of Stanford inspired a generation and went in the lore of the game when they vowed never again to lose to USC in their careers. And they never did--and went to three Rose Bowl games in the process.

You lean to defense? How about the Seven Blocks Of Granite, the Fordham front line that specialized in scoreless ties? And had the great Vince Lombardi as one of the anchor blocks?

The great Michigan teams of the turn of the century were known as the Point-A-Minute juggernauts. Years later at the same university, they had a different kind of team and they called it the Punt, Pass And Prayer eleven. They beat you, 6-0. A point an hour. Or every 10 minutes. Gerald Ford played on those teams at center.

Navy had a squad that they dubbed “A Team Named Desire” after the Tennessee Williams play. I believe the Midshipmen had Roger Staubach to help the desire.

You think “Fighting Irish” didn’t help the Notre Dame psyche and, incidentally, sell tickets?

You don’t think calling them The Gashouse Gang helped the Cardinals play the kind of hell-for-leather baseball that won them pennants and World Series?

There was a team in Texas (Southern Methodist) years ago that used to answer to the nickname The Aerial Circus because it threw the ball more than anybody else (maybe 10 to 20 times a game).

So, you can see where a lot of us ink-stained wretches were elated to hear the University of Arizona football team had come up with a new, inspiring nickname for its style of football. It became known as the “Desert Swarm.”

Now, that has a nice, efficient, melodramatic ring to it. It conjures up visions of a surgical military strike, take-no-prisoners daring. It had connotations of Stormin’ Norman outwitting and crushing the Republican Guard, a catch phrase that would be a boost to morale. Who wouldn’t want to be part of an elite force called Desert Swarm? What red-blooded American boy could resist the recruiters’ blandishments?

Football coaches know defense wins games. And they teach and encourage their defenders to swarm to the ball, i.e., appear as if by magic (but really by speed) wherever the ball surfaces. It suggests bees protecting the hive, it builds an image of swift-attacking, hard-to-hold-off players who can’t be blocked out of the play.

Arizona, it happens, is most often an orphan of Pacific 10 football, the only institution of higher learning in the league that has never gone to the Rose Bowl. It needs some other identification, and Desert Swarm was perfect.

You need a reason to go to Arizona, whose regular nickname is the rather unimaginative Wildcats.

And the team caught the fancy of the nation’s sporting press this year. It started slowly. After obliterating Utah State, Arizona unaccountably lost to Washington State and got tied by Oregon State, which was even worse.

But then, it played mighty Miami, football’s version of the James Gang, to a standstill before losing, 8-7.

When Arizona thrashed UCLA, Stanford and California and then drubbed the No. 1 team in the country, Washington, 16-3, the nation’s sporting press sat up and took notice.

The Wildcats came into the Coliseum on Saturday as a legitimate Rose Bowl contender. Washington had to lose and they had to win. It was not impossible.

Alas! You can’t swarm the 65-yard pass. You can swarm the quarterback when he’s behind the line of scrimmage where he’s supposed to be. But what does it do to the Swarm when he becomes a pass receiver?

It wasn’t as if the Desert Swarm never heard of the new-fangled strategy called the forward pass. Your secondary can swarm, too.

But it was the long prayerful pass that was to leave Arizona’s Swarm undone Saturday. In the second quarter, the USC quarterback, Rob Johnson, passed to Johnnie Morton over the middle for a 19-yard gain; then, on the next play, threw a 29-yarder to Curtis Conway and, a play later, Arizona had given up the first touchdown in the first half of a game all year. USC led, 6-0, after botching a PAT--but Arizona caught and passed the Trojans, 7-6, in the fourth quarter when its own quarterback, George Malauulu, completed a long pass of his own, a 41-yarder to receiver Cary Taylor.

It was then that SC foiled the Swarm, first with a 65-yard pass from Johnson to Morton.

Three plays later, Johnson again got the ball--only he handed it off to tailback Deon Strother, who passed for a touchdown. The receiver was Johnson.

Not too long ago, this play was illegal in college football. The quarterback was not an eligible receiver. But lots of things aren’t what they used to be.

For a nickname really to work, you have to win with it. A Gashouse Gang has to win a World Series, otherwise they’re just a bunch of roughnecks. Murderers’ Row has to murder somebody. The Seven Blocks Of Granite have to play three scoreless ties in a row against Pittsburgh and have halfbacks’ blood all over them.

Outlined against a blue-gray October sky, the Four Horsemen have to beat Army.

You can’t swarm to a 3-8 record. You really should swarm to the Rose Bowl. Dream Teams have to win big, otherwise they’re merely a lot of guys asleep.

It was a nice concept, the Desert Swarm. You can’t say they were only a mirage. Trouble is, the Scud missiles got through. When you don’t win, the Swarm is merely a sting.