Time to Lose the Utes Name

I know what people will say about this column.  They’ll call me a liberal or a commie and say I’m part of the PC crowd.  But try and hear me out.  It’s time to bid a fond farewell to the Utes nickname and it’s not for the reasons you think.

The first reason is that hasn’t it become just a pain in the ass to have a Native American mascot.  Native American mascots come from a time in America when they were viewed as characters not as people.  Moving on from that time is a good thing.  But it also means that even if you’re operating with the permission of the tribe there are a million things you can’t do anymore.  And that is a good thing too.  But at the end of the day it makes for a crappy mascot.

The second thing is about logos.  Utah seems to rival Utah in its identity crisis.  Some people are drawn to the drum and feather, a blatant rip-off of the Washington Redskins (considering we were the Redskins that makes sense, but we had the decency to change, maybe that logo should go by the wayside).  The license plates use two interlocking U’s.  There is the Block U, not to mention all of the new bird logos.  Maybe we’re worse than Auburn and their Tiger/Eagle/Plainsmen problem.

(As a side note a good friend the guy who wrote 100 Things About Utah Football, a book you should be reading, has heard a rumor the Drum and Feather is already gone)

Utah needs to forge an identity one that is all its own.  And there is a way to do this that would be exciting and bold.  Let’s not have any mascot at all.  We will simply be, THE UNIVERSITY OF UTAH.  Instead of thinking like everyone else, we’ll be new, fresh exciting.  Our Logo can simply be a cool powerful Block U.

I think its time.