Marquette Chops Down the Warriors

Hip, hip hooray and yahoo for Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wis., P.C.U.*

(* Politically Correct University.)

This week the Marquette Warriors officially became the Marquette Golden Eagles by a vote of students. Marquetters, with a firm push from Father Albert J. DiUlio, the university president, agreed that to call oneself a Warrior could be offensive not only to people of Native American persuasion, but to women of all persuasions.

In my ignorance, I had never known warrior to be sexually specific. Sure enough, though, in my dictionary one is identified as “a man experienced in war or battle; a fighting man.”

Dennis Rodman, for example, is a warrior. He even wears war paint.

Marquette women do not desire to be called warriors. Nor do they care to be called some stupid name such as Lady Warriors, the way other schools call their women stupid names such as Lady Orangemen, Lady Cowboys or, in one particularly comical case, Lady Gamecocks.

I can hear it now:

“Next batter, Number 22, the Lady Cowboy lady first baseman.”

Even more heartening is Marquette’s brave move on behalf of Native Americans. Seeing as how Wisconsin is a state with villages named Waukesha, Wautoma, Kenosha, Kewaunee, Menomonie, Manitowoc, Tomahawk and Chippewa Falls, I figure this was the least everybody up there could do. All of my old friends there salute you, including the Milwaukee Bucks and their wives, the Lady Bucks.

A few days ago, President Clinton invited the leaders of 547 federally recognized tribes to the White House to review their concerns. His entire Cabinet attended. Three hundred twenty-two tribal leaders were there. Indian honor guards presented the U.S. flag as well as their own eagle staff. Many came in native dress. Clinton said, “Welcome to the White House--welcome home.”

One of those at the ceremony was a man named gaiashkobos. He is chairman of the Lac Courte Oreilles Chippewa nation of Wisconsin.

Said gaiashkobos, “It has taken the United States and the Indian nations 200 years to come to the point where we can begin to deal with one another as sovereign nations. A new day has begun.”

Well, it has at Marquette, at least, which made a respectful and civilized gesture.

If only the Cleveland Indians would do the same, changing their name as well as their address, blotting that laughing Indian face off their scoreboard and souvenirs.

If only the Atlanta Braves would do the same, rather than encourage supposedly enlightened individuals including former president Jimmy Carter, who should know better, to sit there doing mock Indian chants and “tomahawk chops.”

If only the Washington Redskins would do the same, instead of clinging to a name so vile and scurrilous.

I can’t do much myself, but I’ll tell you what I can do.

Henceforth, I can stop referring to this team as the Redskins, which I hereby vow to do. I will no longer make any reference to Jack Kent Cooke’s National Football League franchise except to identify it as Washington.

OK, so I’m politically correct. Sue me.

The rest of you can do as you like. You don’t have to do as I do. That’s why this is supposed to be a fair country. Everybody is supposed to have rights.

“Fighting Irish?” “Celtics?”

Hey, call me about that when the Irish become an oppressed people in this country.

But you go ask the leaders of those 547 American tribes how they feel about seeing some Caucasian kid inside a costume-shop buckskin outfit with a feathered headdress, dancing around on a gymnasium floor.

This is not a tribute.

This is a minstrel show.

Protesters from tribes in Oklahoma were expected to be present last March when the basketball team from the University of Illinois qualified for an NCAA basketball regional tournament at Oklahoma City. On game day, they did not. Fighting Illini administrators have received many complaints about permitting their mascot, Chief Illiniwek, to do his stirring dance.

Look, I understand that this is supposed to be “harmless.” Just as I understand that not all Native Americans are offended by schools and teams that model themselves after specific tribes, Seminoles and Blackhawks and such. Hey, what a concept. Not all Indians think alike. No kidding.

Just think if it affected you. Let’s say you’re of Chinese heritage and you lived in the Midwest all those years when the high school in Pekin, Ill., called its teams the Chinks. That actually happened for most of the 20th Century. Imagine if you were of German ancestry and that the NFL franchise in the nation’s capital called itself the Washington Krauts.

Maybe then Jimmy Carter, Ted Turner and others would go to the games and do funny German goose-steps and salutes.

Like a lot of people who learn as they go, I never put it together that “Warriors” could be offensive to anybody. But that’s because I never asked everybody.

When a newspaper in Portland elected to quit using Indian nicknames, someone observed that even Trail Blazers could be construed as offensive, by those whose peoples were run off their lands by those who blazed the trails. It’s incredible how far we can take this. We can’t change every single thing.

Yet like the man said, “A new day has begun.”

At least at Marquette, it has. Is this a pretty good country or what?