Marquette May Be The Dumbest College In America

Colleges do a lot of stupid things. Usually, stupid things are done because of the perverse political climate and that beast called political correctness. This story is such a story.

Marquette University is in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This is a nice enough town on Lake Michigan. It is the home of Harley-Davidson Motorcycles and a few of my close friends. Marquette University is a medium sized university with an occassionally strong basketball team. There was just one problem -- its mascot.

From 1954 through 1993, the Marquette nickname was the Warriors (see left). It was an allusion to the Less Recently Immigrated American Warriors of the region. The school changed its name in 1994 to the "Golden Eagles" (see above right).

Then, in 2004, some trustees offered the school $2 million if it would go back to the Warriors. That offer was rejected, but the school did reconsider its name and chose to go by just the "Gold."

That name was immediately mocked and rejected by students and alumni, who had not been consulted. So, a vote was held.

In round one, a vote was held to narrow the choices to two, but "Warriors" was not going to be one of the votes. Apparently, some were not deterred.

The university said that during the first vote to narrow the choices to two, nearly 3,300 people wrote in "Warriors" -- Marquette's former nickname that was dropped out of concern that it might be offensive to Native Americans.

The choice were narrowed to two: the "Golden Eagles" and the "Hilltoppers." The Hilltoppers was the team name from 1917 until 1954, when they went to the Warriors.

Marquette said more than 23,000 people voted for either Golden Eagles or Hilltoppers. Golden Eagles won with 54 percent of the vote, compared to 46 percent for the Hilltoppers.

Well, there you have it. The Golden Eagles rule the roost again. Proud Warriors of days gone by are outcasts. And the tops of hills everywhere must mope back home to their - uh - hill bottoms.
The Cheese likes Warriors, but I have to admit that the old Warrior logo sucks.