Big Green Totemism and Other August Oddities

August August Notes:

It's been a longstanding tradition at Harvard to mock our New Hampshire Ivy neighbors who attend Dartmouth. This does not require an abundance of wit, of course, since Hanover residents tend to be eminently laughable.

Three out of every four years, when the Crimson gridders take on their Big Green foes in Cambridge, a horde of fans descends on campus from the "Live Free or Die" state--and usually manage to reach remarkable heights of obnoxiousness during their short stay. While some Harvard undergraduates enter the fray, many know the best strategy for the Dartmouth weekend is to remain indoors, lest they be tagged by an errant beer bottle.

(Dartmouth fans like to tell you, over and over, how Hanover has the highest consumption figures for Anheuser-Busch products in the country, and how neat the bonfire they hold at the end of their freshman week is, and how it really is every bit as good a school as Harvard. And they are fond of throwing beer bottles.)

But backhanded backwoods jokes aside, the latest news from Dartmouth concerns the school's sports program, the University's direction and the mentality of alumni and students there. And it is a very serious, disturbing matter.

A movement has arisen at Dartmouth to bring back the Indian as the school's symbol. After Native Americans protested the logo when they first were admitted to college a decade ago, the Indian was dropped in favor of the now neutral nickname, the Big Green. After a committee was formed to investigate the students' complaints, it was decided that the school war cries such as "Wah hooh wah" and "Scalp 'em" were offensive; the college's board of trustees declared that the Indian symbol was "inconsistent with the present institutional and academic objectives of the college."

But the Indian symbol did not go gently into the night. A new brand of "totemism" has emerged from disgruntled alumni and students, who have latched on to it as a symbol of their insecurity about the new direction the college has taken under the impetus of president John Kemeny. Among other things, Kemeny's administration has brought women to Dartmouth, loosened certain academic requirements, vigorously recruited minorities, and removed constrictions on taking leaves of absence.

So, in a reactionary backlash to what can only be deemed progress, some advocates of the return to the Indian symbol have trumpeted their dismay, claiming minority interests have received preference over others, and that the 1973 ban of the symbol constitutes a curtailment of their right to free expression. One English professor was quoted in The New York Times as saying "People are sick of the claims of victims. Whatever minority groups want these days is O.K."

The mounting debate evokes unpleasant memories of the tension that enveloped the school in March of 1979, when classes were cancelled to relieve growing unease following an unseemly incident where two Dartmouth students skated across the ice clad in Indian garb during a Big Green hockey game.

That occurrence, coupled with the dismantling of a snow scuplture depicting a South Africa memorial graveyard by maintenance personnel the same week, sparked racial controversy on a campus that many had thought of as serene and complacent.

After symposia on racial issues were held, general reaction among the students and faculty of the college indicated that the discussions had been constructive and had raised the consciousness of everyone involved.

Now, scarcely more than a year later, there is a movement to bring back the Indian symbol, showing blatant disregard for minority rights and feelings.

That such a movement exists is almost beyond belief. Is this the avenue disaffected alumni, faculty and students have chosen to trod as a way of expressing their disenchantment with the college in general? Are those who saw the banning of the Indian symbol as an attack on tradition in general not capable of separating good traditions from bad ones? Is Dartmouth a leading indicator of the return of unsullied elitism to the Ivy League in general?

Of course, there are many people at Dartmouth who oppose this venture, to their credit. But you'd think the various types supporting the return to the burden of the past would have a better means for expressing their concern and love for the school than racism. Anyone who says this debate is healthy is unhealthy.

I have always liked the nickname "Crimson"--simple, different, and connoting none of the aggressive, animalistic traits so often associated with sports. The University is fortunate that its nickname fuses understatement with tradition. While "Big Green" is a bit awkward, it is certainly more pleasing than the proposed alternative. Dartmouth should just accept that it is not going to have a resonant moniker like "The rambling wreck of Georgia Tech." Give it up, folks, or you may find yourselves the butt of jokes that aren't in good fun.

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While we're on the subject of sports and politics and how the two seem to intermingle often, one of the bones of contention for years to come will be the relative success of the Olympics which have just concluded.

The Soviets will undoubtedly point to the 35 world records set, the numerous medals they piled up, and the several confrontations which gripped even dispassionate observers--like the duel between Sebastian Coe and Steve Ovett. Then again, events such as equestrian did not even resemble competitions of Olympian stature.

It is likely that with or without the boycott, the Soviets and their satellites would have put on an overwhleming display of athletic prowess since they prepared their athletes with all the care taken before military adventures. Moreover, with or without the boycott, Soviet citizens would have picked up conflicting signals on relations between the Motherland and the West.

But the boycott did reduce Lord Killanin and the Soviet Olympic Committee to pathetic figures, wailing about the future of the Olympics, decrying America's moral choice, denying simultaneously that the noticeable absence tarnished the games. Whether or not you support the boycott, and whether or not Soviet medal figures and the number of records established had been the same without the boycott, the Games were undermined substantially. But did we intend to undermine the games or the Soviet Union? The second is contingent on the first, and both were neatly, if insignificantly, accomplished.

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Baseball winds down to the last third of the season, and fans all over Boston are bemoaning the Sox' sagging prospects. But before we get wrapped up in self-indulgence, let's pray for Houston fireballer J. Rodney Richard. Anyone who ever saw Richard hurl his whistling fastball into the dead of a summer night (actually, it was often difficult to see) knows that he provided one of the great thrills in sports anywhere, only to be obscured nationally by the small amount of attention the Astros received. It is a sobering throught that an athlete so talented can be stricken by a stroke at such an early age, and the fact that his earned run average for the season will wind up under 2.00 provides little consolation for baseball purists and casual fans.