I am not one to knock on Major League Soccer. I think it's more entertaining than people give it credit for and the quality of play continues to get better each year. But if I have one gripe against the MLS, it's this: They named one of their franchises the Chicago Fire.
That's right. From what I can tell, America's professional soccer league thought it would be a great idea to name Chicago's franchise after the biggest disaster in the city's history, the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. Three hundred Chicago natives were killed, 90,000 were left homeless and the blaze caused over $200 million in property loss damage.
Of course, this isn't the only example of inappropriate nicknames for sports teams. The MLS also thought it would be fun to name the San Jose franchise the Earthquakes. Because South Florida gets hit by a devastating rainstorm every couple of years or so, the University of Miami came up with the brilliant idea of using "Hurricanes" as a nickname for the school's athletic teams. Of course, you can't have a team logo with a picture of people drowning and homes being destroyed, so they use a green and orange "U" and make the mascot a bird who smokes a pipe. Because that makes a lot of sense...
Naming your team after a natural disaster that strikes a certain area is one thing, but having an NFL squad named the Redskins is on another level. I don't care how much you love the team; you have to agree that it is very unfortunate that they chose the equivalent of a racial slur as a nickname.
So what about our team's nickname here at Virginia? By choosing the "Cavaliers" as the official moniker, the University did well enough not to blatantly offend any ethnic group or glorify a tragic human event. Unfortunately, I don't think the name fits us very well.
For those of you who may not be familiar, the Cavaliers were supporters of King Charles I in England during the 17th century. Being a Cavalier means supporting the King of England, yet the founder of our school is Thomas Jefferson. Something is wrong with this picture.
Another definition of the term Cavalier is "a gallant or chivalrous man; a gentlemen," which is probably more what Virginia had in mind when the nickname was given the official stamp of approval. This too seems a little out of place though -- it kind of harkens back to the antebellum South and challenging each other to duels and all of that stuff.
This is why I think we need a new nickname, especially because we don't have to search very far to find one. 'Hoos thinking what I'm thinking? We're already known as the Wahoos, why not boot the Cavaliers and make it official?
Legend has it that students from nearby Washington & Lee started calling Virginia baseball players Wahoos in the 1890s and the nickname stuck. I think we should embrace it further. It's a name that is uniquely ours, yet is still fierce enough to be taken seriously in the ACC. We're insane, we're unpredictable, we're out of control; we're Wahoos.
People also say that a Wahoo is a fish that can drink twice its own weight, but that really doesn't make much sense to me. Do fish even drink? They live in water, so to me it seems equivalent to claiming a human can swallow twice its weight in air. It's probably true, but there's not much significance to it. The "wahoo" is a tropical marine and game fish, and is also the name of an elm tree in the southeastern United States as well as a small deciduous tree in the eastern part of the continent. But all of that is irrelevant. We are the Wahoos, scornfully looked down upon by our neighbors in Lexington, but triumphantly turning their insult into a term we proudly identify with.
I really believe that a team's nickname should have some sort of unique tie to the school. There are way too many teams with the nicknames Wildcats or Tigers or some variation of Bears. We should be able to do better than that. The NBA team from Cleveland, Concordia University in Oregon and a semipro football team out of Washington state all share the nickname Cavaliers with Virginia. Changing our nickname to Wahoos completely breaks the mold.
The name is already generally accepted across the University, and the transition would be smooth. I think it's worth it to try to make this change happen. One day, I want to be able to call myself a Wahoo and have it be official.
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