Let’s give some love to our soon to be BE brethren at Marquette. I like to think if Pitt tried to pull the whole “Pittsburgh” crap, that happened in ’97 it would have met with similar destruction. The boys at Marquette Hoops have owned this story on the blogs. Read it all. Especially catching the MSJ in some stupidly bizarre flip-flopping over the name issue. Just read it all and go back an additional week to see how much they have been at the vanguard. Not sure how many years you guys will be in the same conference, but it’s good to have you in a blog alliance right now.

That said, John Walters at SI.com had too much fun with this not to excerpt.

Earlier this week Marquette University decided to renege on its decision to change the school’s mascot name to “Gold.” The verdict came after public and private rebuke (an alumnus friend of mine noted “I bought a nickel-bag of that on spring break once”). Although, as a sportswriter, I must admit that I was disappointed: I was looking forward to dubbing Marquette the “Au.”
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Marquette proudly proclaims itself to be a “Jesuit” university. The actual name of the Jesuit order is “Society of Jesus.” “Jesuit” is in fact a slang term, one that originated as a slur. According to the Etymology Dictionary (and my high school teachers at Brophy College Prep, which is also Jesuit), “Their enemies (in both Catholic and Protestant lands) accused them of belief that ends justify means, hence the sense “a dissembling person” (1640), and Jesuitical, “deceitful” (1613).

In fact, looking up “Jesuit” in my dictionary, I find the definition, “one given to subtle casuistry.” And, because, just like you, I had no idea what casuistry means, I looked that up, too: “subtle but specious reasoning intended to rationalize or mislead.”

So it is alright for Marquette to embrace the term “Jesuit,” which was once unquestionably derisive, but it is offensive for the school to align its sports teams with the term “Warrior,” which means “one who is engaged in or experienced in battle?” Isn’t that a fairly accurate analogy for an athletic competitor?
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If the Marquette officials abhor the name Warriors, they certainly will not approve of the mascot created by a group of cheeky students at Roger Williams University in Bristol, R.I. In a clever protest of “V-Day” (a celebration held on their campus and many others across the country to honor Eve Ensler‘s play, The Vagina Monologues, and one that takes place with complete cooperation of university administrators), the College Republicans at Roger Williams University inaugurated “P-Day” and described themselves as “P—- Warriors”. They even created a mascot, Testaclese.

The administration, alas, not only failed to get the joke but also confiscated Testaclese’s costume. Apparently, to them a V is valiant but a P is pernicious. That’s what I call a phallacy.

Never miss an opportunity to make the Richard Head jokes.