Name-a-Day Calendar, December 20: Central Michigan Chippewas
Page 44 of 365
Chosen in: 1942
Chosen by: Football line coach Lawrence “Doc” Sweeney via student body vote
Central Michigan University is one of a select few schools in the NCAA that has explicit approval from a local indigenous tribe to use their name for athletic branding purposes. The university community seemingly has a good relationship with the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe, the latter seeing the situation as a prime opportunity to educate the former.
It’s also true that how Central Michigan originally landed on this nickname is a tragedy of the highest order.
Central Michigan’s first nickname was “Dragons”, chosen semi-officially after a group of students made a dragon out of boxes and lumber scraps and paraded it through the homecoming celebration in 1925. This name caught on with sportswriters but not with students, and it went back to the scrap heap just two years later.
In 1927, the university wanted a more official nickname and the thinking was that it should “be a brave fighting animal that once roamed the woods of Michigan”. An initial suggestion was “Wildcats”, but student Harry Gover pushed for “Bearcats” because “it has all the fighting qualities of wildcats and more because no one ever saw a bearcat”.1 Despite the bearcat not being native to North America, much less specifically Michigan, the student newspaper picked this nickname up and it was eventually used in an official capacity for over a decade.
Then football line coach Lawrence “Doc” Sweeney got his hands on everything. He noted the lack of geographic relevance of the bearcat and lamented that the nickname allowed few opportunities for “showmanship” or “pageantry”. He offered a new nickname he claimed would solve both problems: “Chippewas”, after a local Native American tribe.
This suggestion was a transparent attempt at cultural appropriation, but people in the early 1940s didn’t care about that quite as much as people do now. The motion to switch nicknames was sent to a student body vote on January 16, 1942, where it passed 351-90 as less than half of the student body bothered to show up.
The result was that Central Michigan’s athletic programs and student leaders spent the next few decades mocking Native American culture via stereotypical imagery, insulting mascots, and offensive chants until the Michigan Civil Rights Commission stepped in and requested they change the nickname. To explore this possibility, in the late 1980s the university formed an advisory committee which ended up recommending keeping the “Chippewas” nickname with several caveats: they wanted the university to eliminate all the questionable imagery, chants, and even pep band drum beats, and do a better job of educating students and staff about the culture of the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe.
Central Michigan made a genuine effort to change their ways and the tribe was evidently impressed enough with these efforts to pledge their official support for the “Chippewas” nickname in 2002, three years before the NCAA would rule that such a proclamation would be required to continue using Native American nicknames without facing sanctions.
The university continues to treat the use of the “Chippewas” nickname as an honor, promoting the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe regularly while maintaining a long list of ways in which the moniker should and should not be used.2
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I’m pulling much of this story from this history, which I highly recommend giving a full read.
For example, students and alumni who are otherwise unaffiliated with the tribe are directed to always call themselves “CMU Chippewas”, not just “Chippewas”.