Fear and Excitement at Marquette

I'll start with the excitement.  Firing Coach Wojo was good news.  Seven years is enough time to try and win a single NCAA tournament game, and he failed.  (Don't worry about Wojo; he made enough money at MU to take care of himself for the rest of his life.)  And there's even more excitement: MU hired Shaka Smart as our new head coach.  I am convinced he'll bring an exciting brand of ball to MU, and I think that in many ways MU is more like VCU than UT, so I'm hopeful he'll be able to replicate his early-career success.  Exciting times are ahead!

So what am I afraid of?  The end of Marquette University itself.  It all started when Marquette got rid of its Indian mascot out of fear of possible offensiveness.  There were two problems with that decision.  First, why should offensiveness be the test?  Offensiveness is not discrimination and, for a variety of reasons, universities should not strive to be inoffensive.  Second, the Marquette fans who witnessed the killing of the mascot no doubt rhetorically asked: "If they're getting rid of our mascot, what's next?  Will they get rid of: (1) Our Indian logo?  (2) Our Warrior name?  (3) Our official school seal featuring the explorer Fr. Marquette and his Indian guide? (4) What about the name Marquette University itself?

It was indeed a slippery slope, and arguing such was not (and is not) a logical fallacy as is sometimes boldly asserted without reason or explanation.  Moving ahead a few decades, the answers to the above questions are these: (1) Our Indian logo, gone.  (2) Our Warrior name, gone -- we went to Golden Eagles, stupidly and embarrassingly changed to Gold, and then quickly went back to the bland but much more palatable Golden Eagles.  (3) Our official school seal -- soon to be gone, as some SJW children bitched about it and the politically-correct pukes running the school dutifully swung into action to change it.  (4) How about the name of the university itself?  Unsurprisingly, that could be next on the chopping block.

What do I mean?  Well, when you start spinelessly capitulating to this hypersensitive bullshit, the slope is indeed slippery and there is no end to what the maniacs will "demand" and what the idiot academic bureaucrats will give them.  Once you take that first step onto the slope, complete self-destruction is a very real possibility.  It turns out, just to our south in Chicago, the name Marquette is under attack because monuments honoring MU's namesake explorer are "controversial," as Fr. Marquette was part of a "larger colonial legacy."  A Marquette spokesman, no doubt well-trained in bowing to the Leftist mob, offered only a lukewarm defense of Fr. Marquette.  And because offensiveness has been established as the test and the reasonableness standard is dead -- did you know that even trees can be offensive? -- it's only a matter of time before the mob demands that MU rename itself, just as they have done at W&L and Baylor Universities.  The Left's goal is swift and mindless destruction, pure and simple.  

So while I'm excited about our basketball future, I am fearful that "Marquette" University won't survive long enough to enjoy it.  Our mascot is long gone.  The name Warriors was previously killed off during my time at the school.  The seal that adorns my two MU degrees is soon to be abolished.  That the name Marquette itself will soon be on the chopping block feels more like an inevitability than a possibility.  This is what happens when you give the maniacs a single inch.

I'd prefer a swift death, so let's just end it now.  Let's just rename the Marquette University Warriors turned Golden Eagles turned Gold turned back to Golden Eagles the Inclusive University Human Beings.  

Welcome to the craziness, Coach Smart.