Name-a-Day Calendar, September 20: UMass Minutemen and Minutewomen
Page 318 of 365
Chosen in: 1972
Chosen by: Nickname committee member Bill Ballou via student body vote / The Massachusetts Collegian sportswriter Steve Ferber
Massachusetts Agricultural College was founded in 1863 and began playing football in 1879. Its first teams were usually known as either the Aggies or the Statesmen if they went by any nickname at all. This was consistent for several decades with very few exceptions. Most notably, the men’s basketball team was known as the Zebras in 1930-31 on account of the black-and-white striped uniforms worn by most of the school’s sports teams in that era, but this nickname was scrapped after just one season.
In 1931, Massachusetts Agricultural College became Massachusetts State College and the “Aggies” branding was largely abandoned in favor of “Statesmen”. Then the school became the University of Massachusetts in 19471 and some students wanted a new, State-less nickname to match.
Immediately, their student newspaper The Massachusetts Collegian polled the student body on what they thought the nickname should be. The September 27, 1947, issue—the first of that school year—included a ballot with eight possible nicknames and “other”. Those nicknames: Bulls, Indians, Minute Men, Mohawks, Pilgrims, Pioneers, Tomahawks, and Yankees. Imagine that. The Massachusetts Yankees. The accompanying article noted that a lot of students still liked the “Statesmen” branding and that they would continue to use it if fewer than 500 ballots were submitted, as they would then assume the student body was content with the status quo.
A couple weeks later on October 9, the Collegian printed an update: Indians, Minutemen (the use of one word vs. two was inconsistent at the time), Mohawks, and the incumbent Statesmen were leading the submitted ballots, but they still didn’t have the required 500 votes, and voting would close on October 18. Then a write-in campaign started for “Redmen” and it shot its way all the way up to the final ballot, where it faced “Statesmen”. In the final election, in mid-January 1948, “Redmen” won, 620-459, making it the official athletics nickname effective immediately.
This predictably brought about a whole bunch of racially insensitive Native American imagery and mascots that I’d rather not get into.2 Thankfully, the university was relatively quick to listen to the pleas of Native American students and community members who desired a less offensive mascot.
In spring 1972, a group of Native Americans from New York wrote a letter to the university asking them to get rid of the “Redmen” identity and both the Student Government Association and the UMass Board of Trustees more or less took them at their word. The former condemned the nickname in May and the latter eliminated it in September.
The process to replace this nickname moved much more quickly than the previous one. Within a matter of weeks, a committee of the Student Government Association solicited nicknames, whittled the long list of submissions down to 20, and held a preliminary poll on those 20 nicknames to determine the top six: Bay Staters, Colonials, Minutemen, Pioneers, Raiders, and Statesmen (again!). Six then became three, as Bay Staters, Minutemen, and Statesmen were placed on the ballot at the Student Senate elections later that month and the winner, announced on September 29, was “Minutemen”.
That’s a whirlwind and it doesn’t quite get into all the details, so I’ll expand a little more. On the nickname committee was Bill Ballou, an editor of The Massachusetts Collegian. According to his own recollection 50 years later, he happened to walk by the office of head men’s hockey coach Jack Canniff en route to the committee meeting in which they’d reduce the six semifinalists to three finalists. When Ballou told Canniff where he was going, Canniff responded: “Do me a favor. Nominate Minutemen.” Ballou obliged, “Minutemen” was selected for the final ballot, and according to Ballou, it won in a landslide.3
If you’re familiar with American history in the slightest, you know what a Minuteman is, but in case you’re somehow not: during the American Revolution, the New England Colonies contained several local militias famous for being ready to fight “at a minute’s notice”. They became known honorably as the Minutemen.
Women’s sports were already underway at UMass in 1972, and their teams were immediately known as the Minutewomen. The first time this appeared in print was the October 3, 1972, issue of the Collegian, in which sportswriter Steve Ferber rather hilariously introduced the term to refer to the women’s tennis team.
“Last Thursday, the (are you ready) Minutewomen, better known as the UMass netwomen, downed Salem state [sic] rather soundly in 7-0 fashion, dropping but one set.”
The “Minutemen” branding has drawn some of its own controversy in the past half-century, usually for being racist (as promoting colonialism) or sexist (as primarily depicting men), but it has remained to the present day. Today, UMass’ mascot is a costumed minuteman named Sam.
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The “Amherst” would be tacked onto the end in 1964, when the University of Massachusetts system came to be.
This deep dive by Sara Abdelouahed of what is now the Massachusetts Daily Collegian is well worth your time if you’d like to learn more.
If you wanna know more of the story behind the selection, check out that recollection from Ballou.