1972: Tecumseh will continue to get his fresh coat of warpaint every time Navy meets Army in football, even though Tecumseh wasn't the original choice of the Midhshipmen. The bronze figurehead was renamed Tecumseh only after it was discovered the No 1 choice, Tamanend, was a peaceful Indian.

[Editors note: This article is from 1972. I've added the pics for illustrative purposes - and also to show how some of what they said was utter hog-wash.) 

Mascots Seen As Degrading

Controversy Rages Over 

Use of Indian Nicknames

By Allen R. Bruce 

1972 July 23, The Times Recorder

      Boston - At the US Naval Academy, a bronze figurehead fixes a fierce glare toward Bancroft Hall. Tecumseh, the famed Shawnee chieftain, stands erect with a quiver of arrows slung over his back. He is strong, dignified, proud.

Tecumseh Monument. US Naval Academy, Annapolis Md

      At Municipal Stadium in Cleveland, a caricature dubbed "Chief Wahoo" flashes a toothy grin from a huge sign. He is a different brand of Indian altogether. One dissenter has labeled the mascot of the Cleveland Indians baseball team as a "big-toothed, pointed-head, grinning halfwait."

      Therein lies a controversy.

      Almost from the beginning of organized athletic competition in the United States, teams have drawn on Indian heroes and folk-lore for mascots, team nicknames and symbols.

      Tecumseh or his predecessor, Tamenend, have resided at the Naval Academy since 1866. Before each Army-Navy  encounter, Tecumseh is given a fresh coast of warpaint and showered with pennies -- offerings for victory.

      At the dawn of the National Football League, then known as the American Professional Football Association, another club named the Indians represented Cleveland. In 1922, when the outstanding Indian athlete, Jim Thorpe, organized his own football club with many former teammates from Carlisle Indian School, he appropriately named the team the Oorang Indians.

      But now, the tradition of using Indian nicknames has come under fire, particularly in the nation's colleges. The first major reaction came at Stanford University. As a result of a protest from native American students, its teams no longer will be called the Stanford Indians and a search is on for a new nickname.

      It's probably that hundreds of current teams, from the playgrounds and high schools through the professional ranks, carry Indian nicknames. In NCAA basketball alone, there are 14 teams called Indians, seven Warriors and 22 others with nicknames like Braves, Chiefs, Redmen or the name of a particular tribe.

      In general, a survey by United Press International shows there is a wide difference of opinion among Indian students and tribal leaders over what should be done -- to seek abolition of Indian nicknames, mascots and symbols; to police their use to avoid 'Degrading" the race or to leave things be.

      Some, such as Atlanta Braves mascot Levi Walker Jr, suspect the controversy results from a lack of understanding. "I think Indians should be proud the Braves use an Indian mascot," says Walker, a member of the Algonquin nation who portrays Chief  Noc-A-Homa for the club both on and off the field.

      "They surely wouldn't use one they didn't respect," he says. "Little boys grow up with the Indian as a symbol of the heroic. I am the good luck charm for the Braves. I represent worry, joy, gloom, happiness, all the emotions of the players and the fans."

      But to the 55 native American students who successfully petitioned Stanford University's student government for abolishment of that school's Indian symbol, Noc-A-Homa, as portrayed by Walker, might represent a different type of misunderstanding.

      In a newsletter to members of the Stanford Buck Club before a decision had been reached on use of the Indian nickname by the university, Stanford President Richard W. Lyman said in part: 

      "Our initial effort last year to police the use of the mascot and to use a more dignified Indian symbol for educational purposes didn't work and probably won't. In fact, from the Indian standpoint, the substitution of an heroic symbol for a comic caricature merely replaces one form of misunderstanding (the ridicule of the comic, bulb-nosed character) with another one, more romantic but just as inaccurate.

      "It doesn't come any closer to getting across facts like these: the American Indian on the reservation has the highest alcoholism rate, the highest impact rate from many kinds of diseases, the lowest income and the lowest level of education of any ethnic minority in this country."

      Stanford's problems with the use of the Indian nickname provided the catapult for similar troubles at perhaps a dozen other schools in the United States and for at least one professional team - the Cleveland Indians.

      Some schools, including Dartmouth and Marquette, are yielding in part to pressures that they drop mascots or nicknames. Others have tried to drop them but found opposing pressures equally as strong. Still others have found that Indians in their areas take a deep pride in the athletic teams they produce and want to maintain a close identification with the schools. 

      The difficulties facing the Cleveland Indians stem from a $9 million libel suit filed last Jan. 18 in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas court by Russell Means, a leader of the city's American Indians faction. 

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      "No other nationality, group or race would be expected to tolerate such a caricature of themselves," Means charged in announcing his suit against the Indians and their use of Chief Wahoo.

      "Only the American Indian, whom this country has raped, robbed, ruined and murdered can be so depicted as a big-toothed, pointed-head, grinning halfwit while we Indians are expected to endure such a racial slur," Means charged.

      "How long do you think the stadium would stand if it (the team) were called the Cleveland Negroes with a caricature of Aunt Jemima or Little Black Sambo? And every time a ball was hit some buy would come out and do a soft t shoe."

      Means' suit alleges the symbol of Chief Wahoo mocks the courage, heroism, statesmanship and wisdom of the Indians. The ball club, on the other hand, said it does not view Chief Wahoo as demeaning and will continue to use it.

      The refrain at Marquette was similar but more successful. The Rev James Groppi, a priest noted for his stand on civil rights, told a television audience on January 24, 1971, "You can bet if this were someone dressed up like Aunt Jemima" at the Marquette basketball games "it wouldn't be allowed." 

      The Marquette mascot, Willie Wampum, was eliminated less than a month later at the request of Indian groups. There has been no agitation, however, to drop the nickname - Warriors.

      At Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH, a school founded 202 years ago primarily to educate American Indians, a study committee has recommended the Indian symbol be replaced and that emphasis be placed on the pine tree as the official school symbol.

      A counselor at Dartmouth, Stuart Tomowah, told school officials that native American students "don't feel Dartmouth has earned the right to use the nickname Indians." A Dartmouth spokesman said the college has graduated fewer than two dozen native Americans in its history, despite its original goal.

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      Randy Palmer, a Kiowa Indian from Anadarko, Okla, turned down a scholarship to Stanford and enrolled at the University of Oklahoma because the Sooner football team used an Indian, dressed in full war regalia and called "Little Red," as a mascot. Randy wanted to be Little Red. He succeeded despite a controversy that reached the state legislature. 

      The turmoil began before Palmer even had a chance to perform as Little Red. In 1969, a group of Indians protested that another Little Red performer was degrading their race. They picketed and staged a sit-in at the office of the university's president, Dr. Herbert Hollomon, finally persuading him to suspend official sanction of Little Red. 

      Other Indian groups urged reinstatement, legislators denounced the university's action and newspapers were swamped with letters to the editor.

      The following spring, Hollomon became embroiled in a conflict with the then governor of Oklahoma, Dewey Bartlett, over the university's handling of several matters and Hollomon resigned. Little Red reappeared at Oklahoma's football games, still without official sanction, in the fall of 1970. Crowds thundered approval and there was no attempt to remove him.

      At Florida State, the Seminoles had difficulty with the symbol but not the nickname. The university dropped the impish little Indian that was used as a symbol and stopped Chief Fullabull from what a spokesman described "tasteless posturing" before basketball games. However, Athletic Director Clay Stapleton received a letter from the Seminole Indian tribe commending the school on Florida State's use of the Seminole name and asking that it be retained.

     At St. Bonaventure, Indians from the nearby Cattaraugus Reservation in Salamanca, NY, have taken such pride in the Brown Indians basketball team that Coach Larry Weise, former star center Bob Lanier who now is with the Detroit Pistons and several other players have been made honorary members of the tribe. 

      Officials at Central Michigan say they have no "serious problems" with their mascot or Chippewa name but "we are trying to upgrade it by using only a dignified Indian emblem, not the war-whooping, fire-breathing type waving a tomahawk."

      Dallas Baptist, with teams called Indians, made a "slight change" in recent years. Says Mrs. Oeita Bottorff, director of student activities:

      "I feel strongly that we should be ahead of our times instead of behind them. I called in our cheerleaders and others a year or so ago and urged them to make sure our image of the Indians be a strong one.. to do something beautiful in regard to the Indians' magnificent history and not degrade it."

      At Mankato State College in Minnesota, Indian students complained about an illustrated symbol of an Indian and an Indian artist now is redrawing it. Indians voted, however, to keep the nickname, Indians.

      In the meantime, Tecumseh will continue to get his fresh coat of warpaint every time Navy meets Army in football, even though Tecumseh wasn't the original choice of the Midhshipmen. The bronze figurehead was renamed Tecumseh only after it was discovered the No 1 choice, Tamanend, was a peaceful Indian. 

      Stanford continues to search for a nice nickname with a nine-member committee favoring "Thunderchickens," a term coined by Stanford defensive lineman Pete Lazetich in 1970. 

      And at Whitewater College in Wisconsin, they'll forget about the Indian emblem that became symbolic of the Whitewater Warhawks. A researcher discovered the Warhawks weren't Indians at all but a group of white colonials that advocated war with England. 

1972 July 23, The Times Recorder (part 1) 

1972 July 23, The Times Recorder (part 1)