But I Don't Wanna Be A Wonder Boy

There have been a spate of college teams that have changed their nicknames recently. Most of them have switched from names that referenced Native Americans, e.g. the St. John's Redman became the Red Storm and the Southeastern Oklahoma State Savages became the Savage Storm. We particularly liked that last one because of the impossibility to wrap the name as a respectful nod to the aggrieved. Still unchanged are the hateful Syracuse Orangemen, an affront to the fake-tanned residents of our proud nation. Just another reason why we can't elect Arnold Schwarzenegger President soon enough. Sometimes, though, colleges have to change their names for other reasons. Reasons like being much too weenie to recruit athletes with a modicum of self-respect.

Arkansas Tech is one of those latter schools. The Division II school has formed a committee to discuss changing the team's monikers from the Wonder Boys and Golden Suns. The committee voted 9-3 in favor of a new nickname and cited the need for a gender-neutral, all-encompassing name that would help unite the student body. Wonder Boys is gender-neutral, we'd say, in that it gives no impression of manliness whatsoever but, hey, it's their school. They'd also like a name that keeps them from being taunted by the other kids.

The school also cited concern by the committee over evolving connotations of the term Wonder Boy. "These connotations include slurs about an individual's manhood or race, and the slurs have been used against Tech when recruiting," the release said.

When asked to elaborate on that, (An assistant to the university spokesman Sam) Strasner said that concern came up within the committee.

"I know one thing that was said by one of the student-athletes in the committee meeting — one of the things that I've heard repeated several times — was that once they leave Russellville and go back home, they don't really like to associate themselves with that name because of some ribbing they take from their friends," Strasner said.

Another part of the problem is that students don't know how to dress up in support of their teams. Wonder Boys and Golden Suns, it seems, "do not lend themselves to a visual identity suitable for printed materials and other marketing initiatives." They also said that when students dress up like superheroes, which actually seems like the closest approximation of a Wonder Boy, it "is not consistent with the spirit or the proud history of the name." Maybe if they dressed up like Michael Chabon? Or Tobey Maguire?

The University is considering names like Copperheads, Comets, Terrapins, Atomic Wedgies and Brady Quinn's Photo Album in an effort to minimize the abuse suffered by their students. When they do come up with a new nickname we hope they'll also enlighten us why Arkansas needs a technical university.

Comments

[Signal to Noise]

I'd go for Copperheads myself, however, I think Brady Quinn's Photo Album must be used for someone's fantasy football team this year.

[Extra P.]

My grandparents used to live in Arkansas, and Copperheads would be a very appropriate name - it's snake heaven.

[twoeightnine]

Syracuse has been the Orange for three years now.

[TheFeed]

289 - My bad but overly tanned persecution really gets my goat.

[Jazz Johnston]

1st Arnold Schwarzenegger can not be potus because he was not born in the US of A. And Secondly I am in favor of Keeping the Wonder Boy name. The name comes from a man named John E. Tucker who played Football at ATU and did it whit such grace and power people wonderd how hw did it. So he was dubed the Wonder Boy and the name stuck. I am proud to let any body know that I am a Wonder Boy.

[TheFeed]

Jazz - You should tell ATU how proud you are of the name. It doesn't sound like too many current Wonder Boys share the feeling.

[Casey]

Sorry I know this is an old article but I am a student at Arkansas Tech and I hate the name Wonderboys, most of us students do. Everytime I see someone dressed up in bright green latex, proclaiming to be a wonderboy, I just want to kick him in the nuts.