'Missionaries' banished from Whitman College

So, Whitman College has become the latest school to drop its mascot.

In a recent Associated Press story, the Walla Walla-based school announced their sports teams will no longer be called the “Missionaries,” named after missionaries Marcus and Narcissa Whitman who were killed with 12 other settlers by nearby Cayuse Indians in 1847.

In the story, reporter Nicholas K. Geranios wrote school officials considered the mascot “noninclusive, imperialistic and incorrectly implied that Whitman, “a private, liberal arts school of about 1,500 undergraduates, “was a religious school.” Officials also stated the name “was not terribly intimidating and often mocked.”

OK, the latter I can see. There are some offensive sexual references I won’t go into associated with the word.

Apparently, many people associated with the college weren’t even referring to teams as Missionaries, preferring “Whitties” instead. That term carries its own problems, as in bearing an easy similarity with a brand of breakfast cereal.

So faced with getting mocked with a sexual reference, or labeled as flakes, I’d likely choose what’s behind door number three — a new mascot. In a survey of 18,000 alumni, students and community members last winter, 62 percent of 7,100 respondents did the same, supporting a name change while 29 percent are opposed and 9 percent say they don’t care.

The decision, of course, has already sparked the clarion calls of alleged political correctness among those associated with the school, as indicated in the article, and those who likely had to Google Whitman College to find out where it’s at, as indicated by a selection of the blogosphere.

A lot of this political correctness reaction is fueled by changes the past few decades by sports teams using Native American imagery as mascots. The latest is the University of North Dakota, who went from Fighting Sioux to Fighting Hawks.

And there’s the never-ending battle over the National Football League’s Washington Redskins.

Teams have always changed their names, and for a variety of reasons. Professional sports teams will change their names when they move from city to city.

Sometimes, as in the case of the National Basketball Association’s New Orleans franchise, they’ll change their name without moving. Before the 2013-14 season, New Orleans went from the Hornets, to the Pelicans.

I am associated with two schools that changed their names. Eastern Washington University went from being the Savages to the Eagles before I arrived, and Wilbur High School dropped Redskins in favor of Wildcats when they merged with Creston.

The fact that my red and yellow Redskins letterman’s jacket has been reduced to a relic of the past bugs me far less than the fact we joined with Creston. Creston, really?

(I’m kidding by the way. I have friends from Creston and it’s a very nice place — a true small town.)

By now, you’re probably thinking I’m going to be making a point about the pointlessness of people getting upset about mascot name changes, especially those who have no association with the team making the switch. Well, I’m not, that would be a waste of time, and besides, who am I to deprive people of their right to complain about something that has absolutely nothing to do with them.

I will point out the irony in this — which is it’s interesting to me how people can get so offended about a decision they believe was made because other people were offended. Sort of an “I’m offended that you’re offended” offense.

I do hope Whitman College comes up with a snazzy new mascot though. I might order a shirt.

John McCallum can be reached at [email protected].