Top 25 talk

[True Basketball Fan]

What would be the womens teams' nickname......lady berserkers.  Ya, that sounds good, I like that.  How about, berserkettes?  That's even better! 

[Gregory Sager]

North Park is too politically correct to use separate monikers for the men and women anymore. In the seventies and into the eighties, North Park's women's teams were called the Vikettes. They got rid of that name, thankfully; as a friend of mine wrote in the school paper, it made the women's teams sound more like a kickline of Vegas chorus girls than athletes. After that, they were briefly the Lady Vikings. But the North Park women's teams have been called the Vikings for seventeen or eighteen years now, or something like that, and there's no way that the school would ever again hint at anything but identical treatment of the men's and women's sports at the school by giving the teams different nicknames.

NPU has a lot of company among American colleges and universities in that regard. It's a sign of the times. Interestingly, the CCIW school that bucks the unisex-nickname trend is also the school that's currently engaged in a staredown with the NCAA over its American Indian nickname and logo: Carthage. The men's teams at Carthage are the Redmen, and the women's teams are the Lady Reds.

[Knightstalker]

NJCU did the same thing a few years ago, instead of having the Gothic Knights and the Lady Gothics they are both just the Gothic Knights.

Maybe Carthage should just become the Redpersons or Redpeople.  They could just make the NCAA happy and become the Carthaginians.

[True Basketball Fan]

That's a great idea.... "redpersons" has such a fantastic zing to it, just what you're looking for in a nickname.

I've noticed this past year that some schools are now referring to freshman as a freshperson instead.  So in a sense, it's not that far fetched for Carthage to adjust their nickname.

[smedindy]

Oh, I remember back around 1990 I was doing some PA work for a local high school. I was at a girl's basketball game and I announced the team as "The Lady Raiders" and the coach stormed over and said "We're not the Lady Raiders - we're the Raiders, got it!"

I always asked after that.

[Warren Thompson]

I think the Carthage 'Elephants' has a nice, historically-accurate ring to it. Maybe even the 'Fighting Elephants' would work.

Or they could simply call themselves the 'Hannibals.'

[Knightstalker]

But if a player ever got into a fight on the court or on the field and lost it and bit someone, they would forever be known as Hannibal the Cannibal.     

[Warren Thompson]

Nay, say not so, 'stalker. This is D3; we don't "bite" opponents, though we just might occasionally sally forth and "smite" them.

["Biting" is for the lower divisions.]

[John Gleich]

Due to the subject of your post Warren, I was tempted to smite you (after all, this IS D3...) but instead you get my applause 

[Warren Thompson]

And you, PointSpecial, hereby receive my karmic anti-smite

[Gregory Sager]

Warren, how about calling Carthage the Punics? I always like nicknames with classical references. When a pair of suburban high schools on Chicago's North Shore, New Trier East and New Trier West, merged a couple of decades ago to form New Trier Township High School, they had to come up with a new nickname. They chose to call themselves the Trevians, naming themselves after the Belgic tribe (the Treveri) conquered by Julius Caesar during his Gallic Wars whose tribal capital still bears their name in its modern incarnation as the German city of Trier.

Scott, a similar incident happened at a North Park home women's basketball game last year. The PA announcer, an assistant football coach who was new to the Park, introduced the team as "the Lady Vikings". NPU's assistant coach glared at him so hard that I thought she was going to ignite his hair with her eyes.

TBF, a few years back North Park began officially referring to freshmen as "first-year students". It went over like a lead balloon, so now they're called "freshmen" again. I'm certainly not opposed to inclusive language, but it was refreshing to see that officially-enforced political correctness has its limits.

[Warren Thompson]

Greg:

Interesting comments.

Now I await some team calling themselves the "Gepids" in honor of a much-ignored European tribe that has never, ever gained proper recognition. Why, if not for the Gepids, the world would never have ...  or couldn't have ... or ... well, you get the picture, don't you?

Long live the glorious Gepids. May their accomplishments always shine.

[Warren Thompson]

Greg:

That some high school students know anything about "Trier" (and J. Caesar and the Gallic Wars) is well-nigh frightening. Next we'll hear about seventeen- and eighteen-year olds debating the merits of the Macedonians v. the Persians.

Where will it all end, I ask ya?

[Mr. Ypsi]

Hey, would you guys PLEASE note the name of this board!!

So, what are the top 25 classical nicknames?    I would think that 'Trevians' has GOT to be pretty high on the list!

[John Gleich]

Ya know, Gregory, calling them "first year students" is probably a lot EASIER once cease to become 1st years and move on to that second, third, and fourth year.  Well, hmm... that doesn't make much sense... oh, I remember the point I was going to make... it takes most kids (albiet at most schools, which are not private... er, actually, there MAY be more private schools, but less people attend them... so, most students... which may just be at less schools... so this wouldn't really apply to North Park... but read on anyway, I guess?)... where was I?  Oh yeah.  It takes most kids more than 4 years to graduate college these days.  I personally have no problem with Frosh, Soph, Jun, Sen... Super Senior, Super-Duper Senior (yep, that's me... on all of my transcripts etc, I'm a continuing 2nd sem Senior... but in all actuality, I was a Super Senior last year and a Super-Duper Senior this... though, really, I was a red-shirt senior last year, and I'm just finishing up my degree now... and I redshirted my first year, so we could call the first-year/Freshmen simply redshirts) but in light of my parenthetical comments, it wouldn't make much sense to call the non-athlete simply a redshirt insead of a 1st year, because, of course, we can't redshirt in D-3 anymore... Hmm...

Yeah, so, if you wanna keep the whole "Frosh, Soph...etc" thing going, then you'll just add Super and Super-Duper Senior to the list, and let that be that.  But... Hmm... what happens if it takes 7 years?  Let's just call them Doctors!

P.S.... Lucky I'm not an English Major... or it would have taken me LONGER than 6 years to finish my undergrad... I don't seem to have that whole brevity thing down, do I?