By G Stuart Smith

While the University community is reeling from the NCAA’s snub, as a native Hoosier, I’m shocked…shocked that Indiana University is going into the NCAA basketball tournament using a mascot that tramples all over the good name of Hoosiers everywhere.

Under rules that took effect Feb. 1, this is the first NCAA championship prohibiting colleges or universities that have “hostile and abusive racial/ethnic/national origin mascots, nicknames or imagery” from displaying them at any of the collegiate athletic association’s 88 championship tournaments.

Under those new regulations 14 schools removed all references to Native Americans such as Indians, Braves and Redmen. But the NCAA found 18 other colleges and universities using Native American mascots and images; they apparently refused to be cowed by the NCAA’s efforts to make sure team mascots don’t abuse anyone’s sensitivities.

But what about us Hoosiers (pronounced HOO-zures for those out of the loop)? I also belong to an ethnic group that deserves protection from those who would abuse our good name.

That great state of Indiana was named in the 18th century as the land of Indians. Those of us who hail from the state have an ethnic identity all our own that is being abused by that southern Indiana school that insists on calling its teams Hoosiers despite all the slurs and innuendoes we Hoosiers have endured over the years.

You know what I’m talking about. Who hasn’t heard that dig coming from those who don’t know the rich tradition of Hoosierdom? Here’s the common question: “Where’d Hoosier come from? Who’s yer daddy?” Ha, ha, ha.

Truth is no one knows for sure how the term Hoosier originated. Way back in my 8th grade Indiana history class, they told us that pioneers hearing someone else in the wilderness called out “Who’s yar?” But all kinds of theories about the origin of our ethnic identity abound. It may come from the word, “hoozer” in the Cumberland dialect of Old English meaning high hills. That term also came to mean someone who’s uncouth, crude or even lawless.

To this day it seems as if most Americans equate Hoosier with being a hick, stupid or coarse.

So being abused by all those slurs of my ethnic roots over the years, I empathize with the NCAA’s campaign to rid collegiate teams of all those insensitive mascots. The NCAA has taken on the University of Illinois-Champaign for using Illini as its mascot. Some find using a defunct Indian tribe’s name is impolite in these politically correct times. Somehow using a tribe’s name to show how fearsome you are to your opponents borders on being a racial and ethnic slur. Same goes for the Choctaws of Mississippi College and the Seminoles of Florida State University-no, wait the NCAA exempted the Seminoles because members of that real Native American tribe like that Tallahassee school borrowing their name to represent just how strong, successful and independent Seminoles can be.

But what about all those other offensive team names? I’m not Irish, but don’t they take offense at Notre Dame’s Fighting Irish usurpation of their gentle nature? Don’t those of Anglo Saxon heritage object to the Alfred University Saxons? What about other universities’ use of Flying Queens, Celtics or Cowboys (boy, howdy, if I were a cowboy I would sure take offense after that recent movie which shall remain nameless).

And even our beloved Hofstra now sports the Pride moniker as it has backed away from the Flying Dutchmen (which is still some kind of mystical image to my mind’s eye).

And here is the mother of all team slurs: The Anchormen. Don’t those TV guys take enough ridicule about their hair, happy talk and harping without the teams of Puget Sound Christian College and Rhode Island College adding to the abuse? It’s time those Gentlemen anchors put up their Dukes and Volunteer or Engineer a Boilermaker right in the Tar Heel to anyone with such a Cavalier attitude who Pirates their good name and Dons a mascot uniform that Sooner or later offends some politically correct Crusader.

So, I think the NCAA needs to go back to the drawing board. They did not go far enough to ensure that their athletic contests will be politically correct. Pass over the Pride and start with those Indiana Hoosiers: I am embarrassed that my roots have been demeaned by that school and its four NCAA Division I men’s basketball championships.