Sense and sensitivity
UMass ahead of the curve on nickname issue
AMHERST -- The name has gotten lost out here. It has faded, succumbed to a loosening memory.
The students haven't heard it. They don't much care, either. It isn't theirs.
Thirty-three years after a simple Student Senate vote changed the University of Massachusetts nickname and logos and mascots from the Redmen to the Minutemen, no one remembers.
And, really, that seems to make sense.
Even the man responsible for the change isn't quite sure how it happened, why it happened. He moved on. To him, it just didn't seem like a big deal.
That is reflected in his campus, the one he left more than 30 years ago. The students, wandering among the construction and into the student union look confused when they're asked. ''The 'Redmen'? Really? I didn't know."
''It just wasn't complimentary," said Boston College basketball coach Al Skinner, who was a member of the UMass team when the name changed in 1972. ''The choice of the Minutemen was, I thought, a great choice because it identifies who you are and where you are. I don't remember having a big reaction. When they said 'The Redmen' it wasn't meant to degrade anyone. [But] if someone takes offense to it, I don't see any reason why it shouldn't change."
Try telling that to the University of Illinois Fighting
Those schools stand as the most notable on the list of 30 that were required to provide the NCAA with a self-evaluation by May 1 explaining their use of Native American-related mascots, nicknames, and logos.
A recommendation on the topic, which could range from no change to a ban on offensive nicknames and mascots, could come out of the Minority Opportunities and Interests Committee meeting in Boston today and tomorrow. But, according to MOIC chairman Robert C. Vowels Jr., major penalties seem unlikely.
''We're trying to eradicate ourselves from the racial names," said Vernon Bellecourt, the president of the National Coalition on Racism in Sports and Media, which is affiliated with the American Indian Movement. ''We're trying to do America a favor of reminding them that these are some of the last images of racism in American popular culture."
Bitterness has begun to creep into Champaign and Grand Forks and Tallahassee. Organizations have been formed. Rancor has crawled into the debate.
But not in Amherst. Here it was an easy process, done at the tail end of the spring semester in 1972. It was hardly the most important issue on campus, thrown in among civil rights, women's rights, the war in Vietnam. It was just another injustice to be fixed.
Vague recollections
Larry Ladd, whose name graces the official document alerting the chancellor that UMass now housed the ''Minutemen," recalls very little about the change.
''My memory on this is very weak," Ladd said. ''I know I was involved. I know we had a referendum. Off the top of my head, that's all I remember."
No one -- not Ladd, not former chancellor Bill Bromery, not athletic council member George Richason, not sports information staffer Dick Bresciani -- remembers exactly what precipitated the change. In documents and articles, references are made to a letter sent by a group of Native Americans from New York asking for consideration on the issue, citing the defamatory nature of the nickname ''Redmen."
They do agree on one aspect. There was no outcry. No anger.
''It wasn't just ignored," Bromery said. ''It was supported."
Check the 1973 yearbook. The first edition published after the name change has almost no mention of the issue, save for a cover illustration of a Native American profile facing a Minuteman.
Unlike controversies surrounding the nearly concurrent moves at Dartmouth and Stanford, UMass never revisited the Redmen issue. The nickname, in place from 1948-72, was gone.
''It was done," said Bresciani, now vice president of publications and archives for the Red Sox. ''It was done 30-something years ago. Who knows what [they] would have come up with in today's world? Who knows what they would have been called? The fact that they did come up with something good and it's persevered, it did become something good.
''I'm glad it was done then, as opposed to now."
Sensitive discussion
Why now? That's really the question.
What exactly prompted the NCAA to begin looking at the few remaining schools with Native American nicknames, mascots, or logos?
Thirty were left when the NCAA asked for the self-evaluations. Now, with Stonehill College's announcement of a switch from Chieftains to Skyhawks and West Georgia's Braves gone, 28 remain.
And, though it seems unlikely, the MOIC could recommend the rest be banned.
Not that either Vowels, also the commissioner of the Southwestern Athletic Conference, or Corey Jackson, the NCAA's liaison to the committee, seems confident about that possibility.
''I'm trying to be realistic," Vowels said. ''It depends on what we, as a group, see. We've got 10-12 folks on the committee and we're going to have to agree. I think it's going to be [a] challenge."
The MOIC issued a report on the topic in October 2002, suggesting that the NCAA collect more information. The MOIC listed three reasons for discussing it: the controversy surrounding the use of the Confederate flag; a request by the president of St. Cloud State University that the NCAA not allow the use of such nicknames and logos; and the US Commission on Civil Rights' statement on the issue that warned against the use of misrepresentations and stereotypes.
''There are a number of tribes out there that have different views on what's going on," Vowels said. ''Some feel it's hurtful, discriminatory, degrading. Some feel the names, caricatures are being used in a way that symbolizes respect, bravery, honesty. And some are just kind of neutral."
The schools themselves, though, aren't the only ones invested in the name changes.
For more than a decade, Wisconsin has refused to play any university with a Native American nickname (though traditional rivals North Dakota and Marquette and conference foe Illinois were excepted, along with games in which the school does not control the scheduling, i.e. postseason play). Iowa later adopted a similar policy.
According to Steve Malchow, associate athletic director for communications, Wisconsin implemented the policy in 1993, in an attempt to raise awareness of the issue, after playing what were then the Alcorn State Scalping Braves in basketball.
''It's embarrassing," Bellecourt said. ''To us it's hurtful. It trivializes a living people's culture. We're a living people. We're not for people's games."
Ill will at Illinois
Look at UMass. The Redmen are dead. Have been for 33 years.
Look at Stonehill. The Chieftains will be retiring July 1 in favor of the Skyhawks.
Look at Illinois. The Fighting Illini -- and Chief Illiniwek, the school's controversial halftime performer -- are alive and, well, fighting.
''What I've been told is that some people might never make the transition," said Paula Sullivan, Stonehill's director of athletics. ''I think it will take a complete year for people. I'm sure we'll have some reluctant participants with the older alums."
With no tie to Native American traditions, no logo, and no mascot, Sullivan said, the school was limited in its marketing efforts. That became one piece of the decision. The other was the NCAA.
Stonehill, however, isn't following the example of UMass. The Chieftains probably won't be erased from memory. Sullivan is hoping for a ''graceful exit."
It wasn't a difficult change. No opponents stacked against it. Just a few calls and e-mails from disgruntled alumni.
It's far different from the battle over Chief Illiniwek. With ''Save the Chief" and ''Retire the Chief" groups lining up against each other, Illinois has arguably become the central example of the questions surrounding Native American nicknames and mascots.
''That has percolated pretty steadily over the last 15 years," said Thomas Hardy, executive director for university relations. ''Sometimes the debate becomes a little more heated and rancorous and other times it has subsided for relatively long periods of quiet. It's been a fairly steady subject of some controversy and debate around the university over the last 15 years."
Illiniwek, a student dressed in Native American garb, performs at halftime of home football, basketball, and volleyball games. He stopped going on the road about a decade ago. His dance is supposed to be ceremonial, respectful, honorable. He isn't, Hardy said, a cheerleader.
He is, however, a polarizing presence on campus.
''You have these mascots that get all dressed up in what is supposedly regalia," said Frances Richardson Garnett, chairperson of the Sutton-based Nipmuc Nation tribal council. ''It's not us. It doesn't really represent us.
''They need to come speak with native people. They should talk with us and see how we want to be represented, instead of deciding what they think we are and who we are."
Illinois is unlikely to give up the Chief soon. According to the self-evaluation handed to the NCAA, the school's Board of Trustees has been working, unsuccessfully, to find a ''consensus conclusion" for 15 years.
With the university fighting a lawsuit on one hand and a powerful group of alumni on the other, Illinois is seeking a tenuous balance. The Board of Trustees has voted to retain the nickname. But how long can that last?
How long before Illinois becomes Stonehill? How long before the Fighting Illini and Chief Illiniwek become the Redmen?
History in the past
Step into one of the elevators on the ground floor of the W.E.B. DuBois Library on the UMass campus. Ride it up to the 25th floor. Turn left. There, amid the photos and records and history of DuBois, are the answers. The Redmen. The past.
The archivists don't know much. They weren't there. It's hardly an issue. No one asks.
Far more campus debate has been held over the ''Minutemen" moniker. That has spawned questions of gender bias and rampant militarism, not to mention a hunger strike in 1993.
For those at UMass, it's over. They are the Minutemen.
''By and large, I just never thought it was a big deal," said Richason. ''If you change, you change. You can always adjust to new names."
Could it be like this at Illinois? Or North Dakota? Or Florida State? Could 30 years make ''Chief Illiniwek" feel foreign on the tongue?
Roger Huddleston, past president of the Honor the Chief Society, doesn't think so. He can't imagine that loss. It doesn't make sense to him.
''You might take a mascot and change it," he said. ''But a symbol of integrity? I don't know if you can erase that from history."
Maybe a stroll around Amherst might change his mind.
The Redmen? Really? I didn't know.
Amalie Benjamin can be reached at abenjamin@globe.com. 
