The current president of Northeastern State University, in his quest to replace the university's mascot with something that will "offend no one," has done a pretty good job of offending almost everyone by caving in to the NCAA's broad-brush approach to cultural sensitivity.
You see, NSU cant be friends with the NCAA with an offensive name like "The Redmen." Only thing is, for the most part the Redmen name is only offensive to the NCAA and not the students and fans of the university who's sensibilities the NCAA is ostensibly protecting.
The NSU president jumps in and, in the best interests of the university, pisses everyone in the university off by exterminating the offending Indian moniker.
Never mind the long history of "redmen" not being used in an offensive context, or the broad support base among Tahlequah's native Americans who would rather have left what wasnt broken unfixed.
The fire sale at the NSU bookstore of everything bearing the painful reminder of whatever terrible thing the name "Redmen" stood for speaks well of the NCAA's manifest destiny.
So it's on to find a more sensitive name to bless the bone-breaking eye-gouging ballet that is organized athletics.
They've narrowed it down to some safely generic and sanitized choices, but I have a few they should consider:
NSU Marshmallows
NSU Correctmen
NSU Capitulators
NSU Frenchmen
and so on.
...and talk about offensive: in it's historical context, calling someone a "Sooner" is calling them a cheat and a thief, Pirates are kids that download music and take caviar out of the mouthes of the poor starving record executives,
and so on.
"Not offend anyone"?
Not when the university president might loose some of that carpetbagger money.
We're all so much better off without being reminded of those pesky squatters, anyway.
Go NSU whatevers.