Lady Rams? Hey, Ewes!
It's obvious that colleges just weren't ready for women athletes. Or teams, anyway.
No, I'm not talking about locker rooms or shower facilities or scholarships, though God knows there are a lot of problems in those areas (at least, I'm pretty sure She knows).
I'm talking about names for teams.
The standard way of giving a name to a women's team is to stick the word "ladies" in front of the name of the men's teams. That's not only tired, it was tired before it started.
In the first place, "ladies" is pretty much out, and deservedly so. In the second place, if you've ever watched women compete in a team sport, you have to know "ladies" is a malapropism, anyway. Just as "gentlemen" would be for their male counterparts.
Did you watch any of the women's hockey matches during the Winter Olympics? "That was no lady, that was my defenseperson."
(Before you have a chance to misunderstand, let me say that I'm not knocking women's sports or women athletes, nor do I expect them to play like ladies, any more than I expect a good male athlete to play like a gentleman.)
In the third place, trying to feminize the name for the men's team is usually a total failure, and it's often downright ludicrous.
I mean, the Lady Minutemen? Give me a break. I see a bunch of guys, led by Harvey Fierstein, sashaying toward Lexington in their petticoats.
Sorry, that doesn't work. Minute Ladies is almost as bad and Minute Maids, perhaps the best alternative, is too blatantly commercial.
Then there are such other absurdities as the Lady Cavaliers, the Lady Statesmen, the Lady Lord Jeffs, and--don't think about this one for too long--the Lady Eph-men.
Perhaps the worst, or at least the silliest, of all is at the schools where the men's team is called the Rams. The Lady Rams?
Personally, I prefer Hey, Ewes! (I had to do something to justify the title and headline.)
At the many schools with animal nicknames, the female form of the name may be acceptable. Or maybe not. Tigresses isn't too terrible, nor is Lionesses, but we are trying to get away from those "ess" feminine endings, aren't we?
And, if the men's team is called the Foxes, do the women really want to be the Vixens? I doubt it.
Nothing Like a "New" Tradition
Rather than sticking with the male "Lions and Tigers and Bears, oh my" method of naming teams, I'd like to see women start their own traditions.
One possibility is to name teams after pioneers such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, or Lucretia Mott. (But not, I think, Elizabeth Arden or Martha Stewart.)
I've long admired the French for putting writers, rather than presidents or statesmen, on their currency. With that thought in mind, some teams might be named for Amy Lowell, Willa Cather, Ellen Glasgow, Toni Morrison, or even Jane Austen. (She's one of my personal favorites, by the way, and she did play baseball and cricket as a girl.)
And, of course, there are some women athletes of the past who deserve to be honored by those of the present. I think the Billie Jeans has a nice sound to it as a team name. The Wilma Rudolphs isn't so bad, either. And how about the Patty Bergs (could be a nice McDonald's tie-in there), the Alice Marbles, the Nancy Liebermans, or, simply, the Blazes (for Carol "Blaze" Blazejowski).
Unfortunately, the greatest of them all would probably have to be left out, because I don't think the "Babes" would go over too well.
You will object, and I don't blame you, that such names are too long. The Nebraska Willa Cathers does have a few too many syllables, perhaps. But it's not much longer than the Nebraska Cornhuskers, and it's shorter than the Purdue Boilermakers, the UNLV Runnin' Rebels, or the Central Florida Fighting Flamingos.
It seems to me that fans and headline writers would soon shorten such names to more acceptable forms that would become immediately recognizable, and would still carry overtones of the original. For example:
Willas Edge Austens, 72-71
Billie Jeans Whip LMotts
Tonis Bow to Cady Stantons
After all, sports fans know who the Chisox and Bosox are, and they recognize Bucs as the short form both of the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. These things come in time and, in fact, usually in a rather short time.
If we go farther back in history, and even farther back to mythology, there are some good one-word names for women's teams.
For example, the Boadiceas, for the queen of the ancient Britons; the Zenobias, for the warrior queen of Palmyra; the Minervas, the Aphrodites, and the Demeters.
Or, to make the headline writers happy, some shorter ones: The Heras, the Junos, the Athenas, and the Freyas.
In short, I'm looking forward to the day when those two top teams, the Boston Boadiceas and the Anaheim Heras, play for the championship in--what else?--the World Ceres.