171 thoughts on “North Dakota Fighting Null”

  1. What’s odd to me is that they had some interesting choices, and went with a thoroughly uninteresting one. It doesn’t seem that we’re incapable of naming teams; collectively, we’re not interested in good names.

    Also, the university president’s speech announcing the new name and what it means is awesome.Report

    1. Inability to come up with a good name is the curse of our age (see also: bandnames, where “#allthegoodbandnamesaretaken” is a recurring tag for me). I just got a (pretty good!) record by a guy calling himself “Car Seat Headrest”.

      When you are making a Robert Pollard fan who also owns albums by “Kleenex Girl Wonder” and “A Faulty Chromosome” shake his head…you’ve got to try harder.Report

      1. Oh, it’s just that musicians are oft uncreative things.

        “The Glitch Mob” — how’s that for a name? (yes, it’s taken.)
        Hydrogen Jukebox

        You can come up with nearly anything, and make it interesting enough to be a name. It’s just a moniker, after all.Report

      2. “OK, what are we gonna name the band?”

        [Scans the room.]

        “How ’bout Fold Out Ottoman?”

        “No, we picked that last time.”

        “Area Rug?”

        “That’s the name of Steve’s band. Remember? You were here when he picked it.”

        “Oh yeah. Let’s see… Glass Coffee Table? Ikea Lamp? Makeshift TV Stand? Bending Book Shelf?”

        “Bending Bookshelf! That’s gold.”

        “OK, should we be The Bending Book Shelf?”Report

        1. I was going to reminisce about how we used to debate whether it was “Smashing Pumpkins” or “The Smashing Pumpkins”, and then realized that the band-naming crisis started earlier than I realized.

          “Homer Simpson, smiling politely”.Report

          1. The Beatles is an objectively bad band name.
            The Beach Boys is … just descriptive, if apt.

            A Flock of Seagulls is really a bit too long and… weird.

            Y Kant Tori Read, otoh, is freaking clever and inventive. Too bad the artist hated the band.Report

      3. My best friend was in a band called The Drinks. Which I can mention freely because try googling them. You wouldn’t find them even before they broke up. (You will find another band because sigh.)

        You know what’s not enticing on a bar marquee? “Tonight… The Drinks!”

        They could have at least gone with “Half-Price Drinks”

        Anyway, you can listen to a bit of the music of the late, lamented “Drinks” (ugh) here.Report

        2. My friends come up with good names.
          Even if that’s all they can be bothered to do…
          (showing up 10 minutes before it’s time to play, and inventing the new song on the spot. Everytime a new song.)Report

      4. I feel the same about new stadiums, theaters, and arenas. Shea Stadium, Fenway, and Candlestick sound more interesting than Citifield, Best Buy Theater, or AT&T Park and other corporate names.Report

        1. It’s not JUST that they are corporate names, it’s that they change annually now so nobody is ever sure they are talking about the same thing. Far be it from me to suggest that the ginormous, taxpayer-funded, hella-expensive structure be called by one single consistent name for an extended period, but….

          It’s like they are collecting more AKAs than most career criminals now.

          Which, come to think of it…Report

          1. Denver is still ticked about how they voted that they’d rather spend more tax dollars on “Mile High Stadium” than “Corporation Stadium At Mile High” but, of course, the local gummint loves money money money.

            So Invesco Field At Mile High is now Sports Authority Field at Mile High for a mere 6 million a year.

            And everybody just calls it “Mile High” anyway.Report

            2. At least they keep “Mile High” in there somewhere. If you live in a place with more than one stadium within driving distance, having something in there that’s a constant so you know WTF people are talking about is helpful, even if it’s clunky sounding.Report

          2. Even worse is when more than one team in the same sport has the same sponsor. When the Mavs played the Heat, the games were played in either the American Airlines Center or the American Airlines Arena.Report

        2. Not all corporate names are as bad as others. For instance, “Citi Field” for a team that plays in New York City kinda sorta works. If you didn’t know what it was named for, you wouldn’t really think about it. I feel similarly about Miller Park and Coors Field… yes, those are corporate names, but they are really closely linked with the respective cities and they roll off the tongue pretty easily; they aren’t a mouthful. Lastly, if I’m not familiar with the corporation in question, I similarly just think about it as the stadium’s funky name. I never heard of Pac Bell (Pacific Bell, I guess?). I’ve heard of Pac Bell Park and that is easy to say so I don’t think of whatever Pacific Bell does (phones?) when I hear the name, I think of Barry Bonds. So that is probably a fail by Pac Bell but a win as far as stadium names go.

          The ones that really suck are ones like TD Bank North Garden. Ugh. US Cellular Field. Gross. Though at least the latter just gets called “The Cell” which is kind of cool.

          Ultimately, though, it is really hard to care about these things. That is just how things work now. Shaking your fist at it isn’t going to do much for you. However, if things like what @jaybird really do happen, I find that objectionable. If the taxpayers ostensibly paid for naming rights and then had them sold out from under them, that is highly problematic.Report

          3. Miller, Coors, and Wrigley are also family names in addition to being corporate names. Going to a game at Miller Park seems more personal than TD Bank North Garden. Citi Field is one of the least worst offensive corporate names because it sounds almost normal.Report

            1. I think the question is, “If you didn’t know it was a corporate sponsor buying naming rights, would you guess that it was?”

              Tropicana Field (in Tampa/St. Pete) is another one that works because it just sort of sounds like an adjective for the area.

              And then there are companies whose names are very generic. The United Center… is that named for the airline? Or just a kumbaya moment? I like to pretend it is the latter.

              And some names seem so out of place that I don’t associate them with the company at all. I only recently realized that the Staples Center was named for the office supply store because, I dunno, it just never occurred to me to link those two.

              All that to say is that corporate stadium sponsor names are weird but a weirdness we are likely stuck with.

              Just wait until the jerseys start carrying ads. And they will. Oh they will!Report

              3. If someone asked me about an event at the Staples Center, I would probably ask them who thought it was a good idea to host a sporting event at an office supply store and/or strip mall.Report

              4. The arena itself, and its newly-developed environs, are pretty cool. But I agree it’s a shame that not even a local company would get the naming rights. At least Dodger Stadium is (as yet) not “brought to you by Lockheed”.Report

          4. When I lived in the Seattle area some years back, before the Supersonics got stolen by Oklahoma, they used to play in Key Arena even as the Mariners played ball at Safeco Field.

            Which was kind of cool because nobody outside Western Washington really recognized ‘Key Bank’ or ‘Safeco Insurance’ allowing Seattle Fans to just say they watched sports at the ‘Key’ or the ‘Safe’. Which only got a little diluted with Century Link Field for the Sounders and Seahawks.

            Still you got a like ‘the Key’ ‘the Safe’ and the ‘Link’. If that damn tech company had just named itself ‘Century Lock’ we would have really had something going.Report

          5. That’s the reason I hate Comerica Park replacing Tigers Stadium, but I actually like* the Lions playing in Ford Field rather than the Silverdome. For one thing, the Ford family owns the Lions, so they can name the stadium the Edsel Arena if they want.** For the same reason, it’s not just a money grab from a random local megabusiness who has some advertising budget to burn. Most importantly, though, is that Detroit was made by Ford, among others, and it’s a not just a nod to a prominent local family business, but to the very roots of the city. It feels right.

            *To be clear, I like the stadium name. I would not describe my feelings about the Lions’ current season as “liking”.

            **Pretty appropriate right now, actually.Report

      5. Forget band names, we can’t even come up with good nicknames. You just end up with the First initial, first three of last name or something equally lame. I actually suspect it is less about people of this era and more due to general blandening that is happening because of national and global media. And One players have much better nicknames than NBA players despite coming from the same sport and a similar cultural milieu.Report

    1. “Logo Process Task Force” would be an OK bandname.

      I could be biased because a friend and I used to spend our retail hours making up stupid bandnames, and the one with which he ended that particular contest, in a K.O., was “Eric Plaid and the Laxative Task Force”.Report

  3. Well, at least they didn’t come up with something like Univ of Oregon “Ducks”.

    At least South Carolina has a fighting bird, the Gamecocks, although that’s only moderately less stupid.Report

    1. At least both of those are varying degrees of unique. (Ducks less so now.) I think Gamecocks in particular is pretty good.

      (Reminds me a bit of a storyline from The Shield, where Shane impersonated someone who trained cocks to fight. He didn’t think it would work because he’s white. The hispanic guy helping him basically said, ‘Dude, the half of the people on the scene who aren’t Latinos are hicks.’)

      (Shane. Sigh.)Report

      3. Colors are also popular in post–Native American nicknames. Fully half feature some reference to color, compared with just 7 percent of other schools’ nicknames.

        Sometimes, birds and colors are combined

        I can’t even believe you left the Stanford Cardinal off this list, previously the Stanford Indians. Particularly since they are NOT the birds. But only the color. Yet has a mascot which is a green tree. You might think those 70’s Stanford kids were screwing with our heads. Unless like me you were at their arch rival cross-bay school and KNEW they were screwing with your heads.

        Plus you get double points if you know that Leland Stanford Senior deliberately modeled the school he called Leland Stanford Junior College (something Stanford hasn’t QUITE lived down even though named after the kid) after Harvard. Which ALSO is just a color. (Or Colour). Giving us the Harvard Crimson and the Stanford Cardinal.Report

  4. I didn’t even know what a Sundog was, but it was the best of those options. After looking it up, it was even better.

    I’m a fan of using historical names when possible, so I would have voted for Flickertails had I the opportunity. I support Cleveland changing its MLB team name to the Cleveland Spiders for that very reason. And think of the marketing opportunities!Report

    1. On first glance, I would have looked askance at Sundogs (still better than Hawks) but on another glance it’s perfect and works on multiple levels (the phenomenon, dogs, unique, and superficially a contrast to perceptions of the state).Report

            1. Mark this down as a case where Kim is right and I was wrong. Pittsburgh’s claim is stronger.

              But they have a name and DC needs one and DC has a claim! So Grays it should have been!

              Better than the Nationals!Report

              1. Nationals is just a really weird name.
                But Washington Grays really feels Civil War to me. Dunno why.
                (unless they were really playing the Black Pride card, which would be well within their rights…)Report

              6. My first thought was that we were talking about the aliens. You could have the Greys, the Arcturians, the Reptilians, the Nordics, the Pleiadians…

                Maybe we couldn’t do the Nordics, now that I think about it.Report

              10. This is not quite right. The National Club was one of the most prominent amateur-era Washington teams, most famous for making the first western tour, in 1867 (assuming that the Athletics schlepping out to Pittsburgh a few years earlier doesn’t count, which it seems not to).

                The first National Club went defunct in the 1870s, but baseball has a long tradition of recycling names. The second National Club was founded in 1877, and last until 1881.

                Things then get a little muddled, but the third or fourth (depending on how you could a loosely organized semi-pro iteration) National Club was in the Union Association in 1884, the Eastern League in 1885, and the National League from 1886-1889. (The standard sources don’t recognize this connection: partly because the modern mindset doesn’t really accommodate this pattern, and largely because I am the only one who has actually looked at the primary sources).

                The thing is, the National League didn’t go in for colorful club names. It mandated boring names like “Chicago Ball Club.” So the National Club changed its name to “Washington Ball Club” (or something equally uninspired). The curious side effect of not having an official colorful name is that this opened up space for journalists to create colorful nicknames. In this instance, they likely were inspired by Maryland Senator Arthur Gorman. Gorman had been a prominent member of the original Nationals, and was still a fan, frequently sneaking out of the capitol to attend games. So “Senators” stuck, in much the same way that the Cleveland team is the “Indians” because of one player being an Native American.

                Now jump forward two versions later, to the American League team of 1901. The American League had not silly prejudice against colorful names, so many of its teams adopted traditional team names from the previous century: Redsox, Whitesox, Browns, Athletics… and Nationals. The press, however, also used what was by then the traditional nickname of “Senators.” The two appear interchangeably for many years. I suspect that the press was also influenced by the common practice in two-team cities of referring to the, e.g., “Chicago Nationals” and “Chicago Americans.” “Washington Nationals” for an American League team would seem odd: hence a gradual trend to favor “Senators.”

                As a point of information, the team names you find in baseball-reference.com are more often than not utter bollocks for the 19th century, and in some cases up to the mid-20th. The list has a bunch of tacit assumptions built into it, which are anachronistic until the second half of the 20th century.Report

              12. We wasn’t a senator when he was playing. He was friends with Stephen Douglas, who got him appointments to various Senate posts beginning with page and working his way up to Postmaster of the Senate.

                He lost that position in 1866 and was appointed to a position as Collector of Internal Revenue. I don’t know the details behind that, but that latter appointment shows ties with the Johnson administration. The National Club also had such ties. This was the nominally amateur era, so their payroll was buried in the Treasury Department budget. This also explains why the club went into decline with the coming of the Grant administration. Gorman is often credited by modern writers for that Treasury Department connection, but this is incorrect. He was far too junior at that point.

                He was elected to the Maryland legislature in 1869, and to the US Senate in 1881, serving three terms.

                Probably more than anyone wanted to know…Report

      1. Nebraska is currently the Cornhuskers (adding an adjective would just be silly). For several years before that was adopted they were the Bugeaters, which is not as bad as it sounds, being derived from a slang term for the common nighthawk. The threat by the University of Missouri team to not play earlier this year prompted me to go back and look up something I thought I remembered. In 1892, the Bugeaters got an official 1-0 forfeit victory over U of M, when Missouri refused to take the field because one of the Nebraska players was a black med student.Report

        1. Southern Tech was the first school of its station in its region to deliberately integrate its athletics. Reading about it – and how other schools responded – is interesting. It’s been over 50 years and we haven’t since played some of the schools we played year in and year out before.Report

    2. Wait… are they still the Banana Slugs? Isn’t the idea behind that as a mascot is that they have no natural predators, therefore putting them at the top of their food chain? That’s sort of badass. Even if only on a technicality.

      Note: I base this on the USSC shirt I had with a big cartoon banana slug on the front and the tagline “No Natural Predators” (or something thereabouts) across the back.Report

      1. I thought it was because the banana slug had a male reproductive organ that was as long as the slug itself. One species of banana slug had a name that literally means “long penis”.Report

  6. Liberals created this problem with their PC demands and will continue to do so as people give into them. Just look at the demands that Princeton erase W. Wilson from its history.Report

      1. Fair point. Though if NDSU changed from the Bison (a good mascot, but not unique) to the Asteroids, that would be great. That would work with a dinosaur suggestion more than the mammoth one, though. So NDSU might consider instead something that hunted mammoths. Like people. Given the region, maybe a tribe. Like the Sioux.

        Wait a minute…Report

            1. When the Houston Texans were considering names, one of the ones they considered was Wildcatters. It was one of the phony-baloney names they put up next to the Texans to make the Texans look like a less terrible name. But I think Wildcatters would have been a good name. More at the professional level than college, though.

              * – Other names included things like Stallions, Apollos, and Roughnecks. The fix was in, though at least two – probably three – of those names were still better than the Texans.Report

              1. Re: Wildcatters: If they shortened that to Wildcats, they’da had somethin. All the roughneck, blue collar-types would be happy about Ownership throwin them a bone with a wink (the “Oilers”, yo!), and management would be able to deflect the inevitable PR fiasco that the team was celebrating craven-and-insensitive-environmentally-destructive-fossil-fuel-consumption by saying they’re actually PRO-environment. Who doesn’t love a wildcat! Win-win!Report

          1. True, but in my defense they have been known for losing a war a lot longer.

            Makes me wonder: is it considered poor form at USC to use another brand? Would that reveal poor school spirit?Report

              3. Scratch 5th, the sign looks slightly different – do they have multiple locations, and maybe even a taco bus? Looks like it.

                The $1 breakfast taco thing seems to check out.Report

              4. They have one on Far West, which is near my home so I go there occasionally. I haven’t been to the one on 5th in forever. That sign looks like it’s on S. First, but it could be anywhere in South Austin.Report

              10. Sadly, that particular version of the sign if from January, 2005 (when UT beat USC in the BCS championship game). Their breakfast tacos start at $1.50 now, which may not seem like a big difference, but it adds up (especially since the tacos I’d get would almost certainly be more than $2).

                People who haven’t spent time in Central Texas just can’t understand how important breakfast tacos are. They are easily one of humankind’s greatest inventions. I’m not necessarily saying they’re better than penicillin, say, but antibiotics may be obsolete in our lifetime, but breakfast tacos? Those are forever (or until we’re all dead from an antibiotic-resistant plague).Report

  8. I was in a brand new school in eighth grade: Standley Middle School. The student body got to vote on the mascot. (Why does a junior high need a mascot? I don’t know. My kids’ elementary school has one, which is equally pointless.) The choices were anodyne, but there was one interesting item: the Standley Steamers. I lobbied for it. The winner was the Seahawks. It turned out that the student body as a whole was not as interested in obsolete automotive technology as was I.

    More recently, a few years back, the independent Atlantic League put baseball teams in York and Lancaster, Pennsylvania. They chose to eschew the traditional names for minor league ball teams in those towns: the White Roses and Red Roses respectively. They instead are the York Revolution and the Lancaster Barnstormers. I was thoroughly disgusted.

    The upshot is that I have been trained nearly my entire life to expect disappointing sports team names, even was presented with much cooler possibilities.Report

    1. When I was in middle school, a new middle school was built. So they had to choose a mascot. The administration liked Cadets because it was taken from land of a government installation where that name was appropriate. The kids didn’t like it. There was a groundswell of support for a different name, the Cobras. It was universally popular with anyone and everyone who cared.

      The district immediately assumed that it must be some sort of gang thing and went with Cardinals.Report

  9. Traveling in the northwest many years ago, I stopped in to watch a high school game between the “Eagles” and the “Spuds.”

    The “Spuds.”

    It seemed to me at the time that growing up in a school system where your high school team was called the “Spuds” was a particularly evil form of child abuse.Report

    1. Idaho has multiple teams to potato-based names. I remember one was the Russets.

      When Twin Falls got a minor league baseball team, one name they considered was the Twin Falls Onions.

      Why? Because Onions are strong. I like it. Better than the Cowboys, which they ultimately selected.Report

  11. Kim: (unless they were really playing the Black Pride card, which would be well within their rights…)

    Within whose rights? Jesse Jackson or an MLB team?Report

  13. Considering that it is North Dakota, why didn’t they go for the North Dakota Oil Riggers? Oil Riggers are seen as tough and hardy people and would be a good mascot for a football team, exceedingly few people would have been offended, and it’s original.Report

    2. It’s got an implied gender bias, though. A team name like “The Hawks” implies male, female, and genderqueer hawks. Oil Riggers are predominantly male and that can make a good chunk of the viewing audience feel alienated.Report

    3. Why shouldn’t they be offended? It implies that oil riggers are violent and war like. If it’s not appropriate for native Americans why would it be okay for others to be called the same?Report

      1. I don’t think oil workers would object. Environmentalists might, though.

        Biggest issue is that while the state enjoys oil revenue but doesn’t identify itself by it. It’s not wrapped in its history and self-image like Texas and Alberta.Report

              2. True liberals have issues with the Straaw tribe due to its severely ingrained patriarchy. You never even hear anything about Straaw women, but the men are all over the place.Report

              1. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard that. At least not without it being reinforced by “and they are rightly obhecting” or “and they make a convincing argument.”

                I still don’t entirely agree with that argument (too much subjectivity), but it’s not the same.Report

  14. They need to get some Iain Banks up in this piece.

    The North Dakota And You Mother Too.

    The North Dakota Subcutaneous Haemorrhages.

    The North Dakota Hyperextended Groin Injuries.

    The North Dakota Late Hits.

    The North Dakota Banned From NCAA.Report

  16. Will Truman:
    Biggest issue is that while the state enjoys oil revenue but doesn’t identify itself by it. It’s not wrapped in its history and self-image like Texas and Alberta.

    And the University of North Dakota is in Grand Forks, the other side of the state from the oil activity. North Dakota is not a tiny state. It would be no surprise that the university community might feel little affinity or connection with drilling that happens hundreds of miles away.

    North Dakota has fairly skewed college and university placement. The two big state schools are on the Minnesota border.

    (And I’m not sure why this reply fell out of the thread that Will’s was in….)Report

        3. I like that. Though the University of North Dakota, which is in Grand Forks, may object to being named the Minnesota Fargos more for indicating it’s in Fargo, the home of North Dakota State University.Report

    2. That’s true, but more importantly the eastern corridor is where most North Dakotans live. Which, combined with the lack of a while collar oil industry in the state, is part of why the state doesn’t really identify with what’s going on over on the other side.Report

      1. Of the cartograms I’ve done over the last few years, this one of the Great Plains states is one of my favorites. Regular map projection on the left; cartogram on the right with counties resized based on population; states in various colors with boundaries in blue; white counties are official Great Plains. Not just because it illustrates just how empty states like the Dakotas get in the western parts, but because the Plains emptiness is so extreme it distorts the cartogram to the point where things are almost unrecognizable.Report

  19. I think that Roughriders would be a good name, but only if they followed the CFL precedent and made every college in ND use it as its mascot.Report

  20. Falcons. Ospreys. Raptors.

    There are lots of cool bird-themed names, not everyone has to be hawks.

    But three of Canada’s seven NHL hockey teams are named after the concept of being Canadian (with another three named after local industries), so we really don’t have any grounds to criticize.Report

      2. North Dakota has extensive badlands, though again in the wrong part of the state. Theodore Roosevelt National Park in western North Dakota has badlands that are less dramatic, though no less beautiful, than those in western South Dakota. They also have much more wildlife. By the way, if you ever want to visit a very nice national park and have good odds to be one of a handful of people there, the North Unit of Teddy Roosevelt NP is a great place to go.

        Edit: Oh, and I see Sam linked to the park! It’s a beautiful place.Report

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