“Nothing is Over Until We Decide It Is! Was It Over When the Germans Bombed Pearl Harbor?”

By Kurt Hunzeker (with some copy points provided by the movie Animal House)

That aspiring quote comes from a future senator…as the final credits to Animal House suggest. (Senator) John “Bluto” Blutarsky spoke this memorable line to try to rally his Delta brothers to fight back against Dean Wormer and the boys from Alpha house.

But this quote could easily serve as the basis for Marquette University’s ill-conceived nickname switch this summer. Without addressing the student body or key alumni, Marquette’s top decision-makers wanted a new moniker for the entire university.

A switch from “Warriors” to “Golden Eagles” was necessitated when the Jesuit institution found it hard to have a name referring to physical and lethal attackers associated with a private, Christian school. The “Golden Eagles” name never caught on in just about every facet of the Marquette community.

So the university decided to spend thousands of dollars to create a new brand, a new name and a new era for Marquette…except they forgot to tell anyone else.

When the school forced the nickname “Gold” on the unsuspecting Marquette public, backlash could not come fast enough. With the outcry so strong, so pointed and in such large numbers, from students to members of the athletics department to elected community officials, the school had to backpedal and backpedal fast to cushion the blow of this public relations fiasco.

To make a long story short, the “Gold” was scrapped and Marquette’s voting public decided that the “Golden Eagles” was far better than anything the close-knit early selectors could come up with.

It could be that this lesson on crisis management, wasted resources and funds and horrid research helped the owners of the expansion New York-Penn League State College (PA) franchise to transfer the power of naming the team to its prospective fans. (The same ownership group controls the Eastern League’s Altoona Curve.)

The new Minor League Baseball club began its “name the team” contest by accepting submissions from fans in the State College and Centre County communities. Seven popular submissions moved on to a semi-final round of voting, again open to the public, whose collective voice would determine three finalists.

As fast as Black Bears, Copperheads, Miners, Mountain Bats, Ridge Riders, Sliders and Stags became popular, they were “dropped like 3rd period French” (Ocean’s 11).

Instead of forcing one of those names down their fans’ throats, State College’s owners conducted focus groups, town hall-type meetings and one-on-one conversations to see what the local area’s residents rally around, believe in and hold dear. The passion, thoughts and suggestions from these interactions paved the way for the club to not only announce a new set of finalists, but to create categories representative of life in State College/Centre County, and nicknames that reflect those groups: farming, fishing, iron-making, Penn State University and wildlife.

Borrowing from the team’s press release, here are the nickname finalists’ that correspond to each aforementioned category (in case you missed it):

ANGLERS – Representing the fishing category, an angler is another name for a fisherman who uses a hook and line. Centre County is blessed with 37 different trout streams, meaning many residents can already call themselves “anglers.”

COALYS – The name Coalys represents a tale from the early days of Penn State University. Coaly was the name of a legendary mule that helped haul materials in the construction of Old Main and other campus buildings in the mid- and late-1800s. “Old Coaly” became such a favorite of students that he served as the informal university mascot before the adoption of the Nittany Lion in 1904. So great was the University's affection for Old Coaly that after his death in 1893, his skeleton was preserved and is currently on display inside the HUB-Robeson Center on the Penn State campus.

FURNACE – From the rich history of iron production in Centre County comes the name Furnace. The borough of State College is located on land originally part of the land holdings of a community named Centre Furnace, which was established in 1791 by Revolutionary War veterans John Patton and Samuel Miles in an area rich with iron ore.

HAYMAKERS – As a nod to the rich agricultural history of Centre County – and Penn State University itself – comes the name Haymakers, referring to farmers who make hay for the purpose of feeding their livestock. Interestingly, Penn State University was established in 1855 by the Pennsylvania Agricultural Society as a school for farmers to learn improved methods to grow crops.

SPIKES – Representing the wildlife category is the name Spikes, referring to the un-branched antler of a young male deer. The name signifies the popularity of deer hunting in Centre County, while also serving as a metaphor for a young minor leaguer who may or may not develop into a major leaguer, just as a young deer may or may not develop a full set of antlers. Spikes also have a railroad connotation, which links it to the Altoona Curve, whose secondary logo includes a railroad spike through a baseball.

State College followed the chain of events I outlined in Sparts Marketing’s first column, and that is:

A) Drive you the fan to follow the team, which then leads you to
B) Buy tickets for the upcoming game so you can be around others who like the team, which then leads you to
C) Buy merchandise and apparel that lets you tell others that you associate with said team, which then leads to
D) A stadium full of logo-ed fans, buying hot dogs, sodas, beers and that ever popular $300 retro jersey, which then leads teams to
E) Design and unveil commemorative logos (anniversary, retro, turn-ahead-the-clock, alternate, yada yada yada) to make more money due to
F) Everyone just having to buy ANYTHING with that logo on it, because it's a collectible, which then leads to....

Here’s hoping future name-changers follow the State College example and not the Marquette fiasco.