College Names Wacky

If you pause to think about it, so many of the college basketball programs we root for have peculiar nicknames. Some of them don’t make any sense. Some of them are funny. And some just leave you wondering why someone thought that name was a good idea.

What got me going on this was watching the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga men play ball during the first week of the season. I always thought Chattanooga’s nickname was the Moccasins, as in either the Indiana footware or the dangerous snake. But no, not anymore. I learned that Chattanooga goes by the Mocs. Just the Mocs. And, as the team’s media guides insists not the Moccasins, not the Mockingbirds (whatever that’s about). The Mocs. The Mocs? What the heck does that mean? To me that just makes it easier to mock them.

Also early in the season I witnessed a game that involved Stony Brook, the Long Island school which didn’t even have Division I intercollegiate sports until  1994. Stony Brook is called the Seawolves. Now since Stony Brook is newer on the block, and since there is no such thing as a seawolf, I can only conclude that one night some years back that the president of the school (from whom the name came) was up late watching the Great Alaska Shootout on the tube and stumbled across a game featuring the University of Alaska Anchorage. Since UAA is the Seawolves, and has been for much longer, I figure Stony Brook swiped the name. The Stony Brooks may not even have known originally that a seawolf is a mythical creature.

As a trivia item, for one year in the 1970s when Alaska Anchorage began competing in college sports the school’s teams were called the Sourdoughs. A sourdough is a respected long-time Alaskan and a respected description in the 49th state. I don’t know why UAA didn’t stick with that name.

Another nickname I could live without is the Terriers, as in Boston University. And I’m an alum. Hate to say this BU, but the image of a terrier is of a little yappy dog that nips at your ankles, not exactly a fearsome mascot. A bunch of teams have Wildcats as a symbol. That’s boring because there are so many of them, but it is manlier, rougher and tougher than a Terrier. Terriers just don’t connote terror.

Some other nicknames that do not prod me to order souvenir gear from the college bookstore are the Akron Zips, the Texas Christian Horned Frogs, the Stetson Hatters, the North Florida Ospreys, the Vermont Catamounts, the Virginia Military Keydets, and the St. Louis Billikens. The Zips remind me of zip guns, the Horned Frogs of parched desert, the Hatters of the Mad Hatter of Alice in Wonderland, the Ospreys of an endangered species, the Catamounts of catapults, the Keydets of toy soldiers, and the Billikens of birds, not locally made good-luck elf dolls.

I’ve never been big on nicknames that revolve around Satan, either, as in the Duke Blue Devils, the Wake Forest Demon Deacons, or the DePaul Blue Demons. I half wonder why those schools aren’t perpetually picketed by politically correct church groups.

There are, of course, an abundance of lions and tigers and bears across the land and while I have nothing against any of them I’d rather see them in the zoo than on the court.

I will call you back when I get the lowdown on the Georgetown Hoyas, probably the most obscure of all (OK, it helps to know Latin), or when I come across any nickname that can top the Division II University of California Santa Cruz Banana Slugs. Now that’s a slam dunk.