The Texans, By Any Other Name, Would Stink As Badly

(4/1/00)

A couple of days ago, I opened up the sports page, as I customarily do because I am male, and found, at the end of an other wise desultory article about the fat lot of nothing currently happening in the NFL, a chilling sentence that was all the more disturbing for its deadpan presentation. The sentence was this: "The new Houston [NFL] franchise has narrowed its list of possible nicknames to Apollos, Bobcats, Stallions, Texans and Wildcatters." After choking on my supper, I set aside some time to ignore my homework and ponder how we could have arrived at this crisis in sports team naming.

To say the least, this crisis has been creeping up on us for some time now. Virtually all sports teams that came into being before 1950 have nicknames derived from one of these three traditions: (a) large, powerful animals, (b) seeming non sequiturs with weird etymologies, or (c) local features or traditions. In this first tradition, we have (for example) the Detroit Tigers and Detroit Lions. In the second tradition, we have the the Cincinnati Reds, who were named after the red stockings they wore (not their lipstick or their politics). In the third tradition, we have the Los Angeles Lakers and Utah Jazz, whose now-baffling names made a lot more sense when they were based in Minneapolis and New Orleans, respectively. This system served sports well for years; even if sometimes the inquisitive among us wondered what exactly a Cleveland Brown was, we just assumed that there was some sort of reason.

When new teams were added to the professional sporting leagues, however, they found that all the good animals had already been taken, that all the new cities they were based in had no local traditions to speak of (at least, traditions that made for good sports team names), and that no one was going to accept a newly created weird etymology that everyone had to explain over and over. Faced with this seeming impasse, teams have resorted to two main strategies: broadening the definition of a large, powerful animal (the Minnesota Timberwolves, the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Florida Marlins) or using abstract nouns that sound sort of intimidating (the Miami Heat, the Orlando Magic). Most of the new animals just sound silly, and the constant problem with the abstract noun is that the sentence "Player X is a Knick" makes absolutely no grammatical sense if you have to say "Player X is a Heat."

These are not the best naming strategies in the world, as we can see. However, due to corporate error, some teams have sunk even lower. The Toronto Raptors were named right after "Jurassic Park" came out and will regret it forever. The Anaheim Mighty Ducks are owned by Disney and were actually named for that desultory (but Disney-produced) series of hockey "Bad News Bears" knockoffs. The Washington Bullets, thinking their name evoked urban violence, changed their name to the Washington Wizards, which evokes the Ku Klux Klan much more strongly than "Bullets" evoked urban violence. The Minnesota Wild, a new hockey team, are named not after an abstract noun but an adjective that is sometimes used as a noun. In terms of logic, this makes naming one's team after an abstract noun look like Kant's categorical imperative. First of all, it's not intimidating in any way. Second, every time I try to form sentences with it in my mind, I have a mental backfire. If I say, "The Wild just can't play with the Red Wings," for example, it sounds to me like the sentence is missing a word somewhere.

Still, some of the upcoming names for the Houston franchise will undoubtedly take the weight of public ridicule off of the Wild if they are enacted. "Bobcats" and "Stallions" are fairly conventional and fairly inoffensive (and fairly lame), but then Houston veers into the deep end of the retarded pool. "Apollos"? Would they go home to their Heras or Athenas every night? Besides the obvious potential for protests against the Houston team's paganism (not that that's what I have a problem with), the idea of having 56 or so Greek gods standing on the sidelines is a bit silly. (Contrast this with the Tennessee Titans, which is an actual good new name and for which the plural makes sense.) "Wildcatters" almost makes sense except for the plethora of college teams named the "Wildcats"; it sounds like Houston is attempting to assert that, even though they'll most likely be the worst team in the league when they enter it, they'll sure as hell kick Arizona or Kentucky's asses.

But the absolute worst name imaginable for this franchise is "Texans." Whatever team name you have is supposed to be intimidating, in some way, and having "Texans" as your intimidating team name only reinforces stereotypes about Texans. I will freely admit that, when I think "Texan," I think "shotgun-toting semiliterate racist who is only too eager to shoot anyone who steps on his property or, if the Texan only wounds the trespasser, watch the trespasser die in the electric chair later." I realize that not all Texans are like this; but that's the first reaction in my brain, especially if someone is really proud of hailing from the state that has executed the largest number of its citizens in the USA. I have no idea why the Houston franchise management would want to reinforce this stereotype subconsciously by naming its team that way. "The Houston Texans--We're From the Most Aggressive State." Besides which, it sounds incredibly stupid, like the only thing they have ever read is a map. Would you root for a team called the "Baltimore Marylanders" or the "Detroit Michiganders" or the "New York New Yorkers"? (Perhaps some New Yorkers would like the last one, but who cares what they think.)

So what to do? Do what I have always encouraged teams to do: exercise more latitude in deciding what to name teams after. The college game, as always, has shown us the way. The Hofstra Flying Dutchmen, the Tulsa Golden Hurricane (which sounds like a second-grade pissing contest), the North Carolina Tar Heels...these names are so egregiously bad that they end up sounding good. Besides which, there are still good names to be had. Western Maryland has named their team the "Green Terror," which is an example of a good abstract-noun name. I personally want to start a college so I can put it in the school charter that the teams are named the Apocalypse. At the homecoming game, four horsemen would trot onto the field in black cloaks, along with a young woman working the PA system who would announce "The Apocalypse is coming! Repent, lest ye be schooled!"

It couldn't hurt. And it would at least be more interesting than what we have now.

By the way, this was not an April Fool's article: the Houston expansion team is really named the Texans now. They are not very good; the only interesting thing about their season thus far is that they beat Dallas, which is always good. Also they seem determined to grind their #1-overall pick, quarterback David Carr, into the ground by providing him with no offensive-line protection whatsoever. I guess they think he and his cranium are tough enough, 'cause they're Texans! Yee-haw!

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