Chanticleers, Emus Are Names To Reckon With

I am consistently fascinated by the naming of things.

For example, West Branch is south of South Branch, but north of North Branch, which is located far south of here, near Lapeer.

It's a pity there's no East Branch, because if there were, it would probably be located way north, near Harbor Springs. Nothing like keeping my directions straight on the state map.

On the map of the NCAA Basketball Tournament, you may have noticed a school called Coastal Carolina, which is nicknamed the Chanticleers.

The what?

The Chanticleers. After the rooster in Geoffrey Chaucer's "The Nun's Priest's Tail" in The Canterbury Tales.

Coastal Carolina was not the only team with a unique nickname. There were the Richmond Spiders, Murray State Racers, Wisconsin-Green Bay Fighting Phoenix and Wake Forest Demon Deacons.

And, of course, there's Eastern Michigan University, which has no official nickname. They used to be known as the Hurons, but that was before school officials decided that Native American tribes do not make suitable nicknames.

Just for the record, and not really meaning to harp on directional misnomers, but the Hurons are a tribe that the dictionary says come from west of Lake Huron. Ypsilanti, last time I checked, was not west of Lake Huron.

Anyway, the lack of a nickname left people calling Eastern the Emus - which is an ostrich-like bird as native to Ypsilanti as the Huron tribe.

I should note here that commentators on Cable News Network, ESPN and several radio stations broadcasting tournament games chose to keep calling Eastern the Hurons. They probably just didn't feel right about saying "Emus" on national broadcasts.

The last nickname-less team in the Big Show was Siena College, in 1989. They had dropped the moniker "Indians," but no one called them the Emus, either. They were dubbed the Measlemen, though, since there was a measles outbreak at the New York campus.

What's in a name? Well, names are a big part of schools today. And one of the things which has come up recently in the West Branch-Rose City School District is a change of name.

The thrust of this argument is that, having a two-sivyt, hyphenated name produces a division among the two cities within the district.

Maybe there's some merit in the idea to change the name. Suggestions I heard at a recent school board meeting included:

Ogemaw Consolidated Schools.

Ogemaw Hills Schools.

Ogemaw Area Schools.

If it would help ease whatever tensions exist between some residents in Rose City and West Branch, a name change would be great.

But then some people started talking about changing school nicknames. And colors. Somebody suggested making them uniform throughout the school district.

Well, hold on. Let's not get carried away.

Even if the district name is changed, there's no need to start messing with individual school nicknames. Surline can still be the Patriots, even though there's no team locally called the Scuds.

Rose City can remain the Wolverines. However, maybe the colors should be maize and blue. Just a thought.

Whatever. Just don't mess with the nicknames. You might end up having to dress some poor student up like an ostrich at sporting events.

This article originally appeared in the Ogemaw County Herald.