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Friday, March 15, 2002In Colo., Fightin' Whities play hardball Basketball team picks unusual nickname in protest of Indian mascots By Chryss Cada, Globe Correspondent, 3/15/2002 REELEY, Colo. - Besides handling all the media attention, the biggest challenge facing the Fightin' Whities is coming up with a battle cry. ''It's interesting to sit around and think, what noise does a white person make?'' said Solomon Little Owl, a member of the Fightin' Whities intramural basketball team at the University of Northern Colorado. ''When you say that about a white person, you realize how ridiculous the whole idea of having people as mascots is. This is our way of making that point.'' Little Owl, director of Native American Student Services at the university, suggested adopting the mascot to draw attention to the use of American Indians as mascots for sports teams. All 10 team members - three Native Americans, two Hispanics, and five Anglos - supported the move. ''I grew up in the Indian world, learning the traditions, learning what an eagle feather means,'' said Charles Cuny, the Lakota Indian who organized the team. ''And then I turn on a [Florida State University] game on a Saturday and see a blue-eyed boy dressed up in eagle feathers throwing down a spear and dancing around like a fool.'' Cuny said that he, and most other young Indians, are more interested in larger issues, such as health care and land rights, but that taking on offensive mascots is a good starting point to bring awareness to more substantial issues. The use of American Indians as sports mascots has been an issue for at least three decades. It was in 1968 that the National Congress of American Indians launched a campaign to address stereotypes in the media. The National Congress has approached the Cleveland Indians and the Washington Redskins. ''Officially, the NCAI can't really sanction what they're doing, but it's definitely a new and unique approach,'' said Adam Bailey, the legislative associate who handles the mascot issue for the Indian Congress. ''They've certainly opened the eyes of a lot of Americans.'' About 1,200 school teams have changed their mascots in the last 38 years, said Dan Ninham, founder of Coloradans Against Ethnic Stereotypes in Colorado Schools. ''We've still got about 600 who haven't.'' Ninham, a graduate student at UNC, launched a campaign at the start of the year to change the mascot at nearby Eaton High School. The school's teams are called the Reds, and the logo is of a big-nosed American Indian. His coalition got a boost when the UNC intramural team, officially named ''Native Pride,'' adopted the ''Whites'' mascot to draw attention to the issue. The coalition provided the team with T-shirts with a cartoon mascot of a white male with slicked-back hair and wearing a tie and dark coat. The T-shirts are imprinted with ''Every thang's going to be all white!'' on the front and ''The Fighting Whites '' on the back. The nickname has since evolved to the catchier ''Fightin' Whities.'' ''We've tried to open a dialogue for over two months with the [Eaton] School District,'' Ninham said. ''But to them, we're invisible. Maybe this will get their attention.'' At the University of Northern Colorado campus in Greeley, where grain towers serve as the skyline, only 76 of the 11,000 students on campus are officially identified as American Indian. But UNC's small American Indian population is making a big impact with the Fightin' Whities. Hundreds of e-mails and voice messages have poured into Little Owl's office since the local paper did a story on the team. A march by those supporting a name change for the Reds is being organized for late April. Marchers shouldn't expect a warm welcome in the community of 1,900. Among the farmers gathered at Eaton's North Bean and Seed, the consensus is that the high school's mascot shouldn't be of concern to anyone outside the town limits. ''I've lived here all my life, and that Indian is a part of Eaton,'' said one resident who asked not to be identified. ''Some yahoos from out of town want to come in and take that away.'' At the high school, where about 80 percent of the 416 students are Anglo, the sentiment is the same. ''You'd think they'd [American Indians] would be honored to have some kids wanting to fight in their name,'' said sophomore Mallory Bailey. ''It's not something were putting down. In fact, we're very proud of it.'' Bill Mondt, Eaton High's assistant principal, said there has been no discussion on changing the mascot. ''Our students and our community stand behind using the Reds,'' he said, ''and that tradition and support is what matters.'' Fightin Whitie Ryan White disagrees. ''They talk about tradition that goes back, what, 70 years?'' he said. ''Well, we've got our own traditions, and they go back, well, forever.'' This story ran on page A2 of the Boston Globe on 3/15/2002. © Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company. posted by Webmaster@ AIM Support 2:24 PM Last updated:
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