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Tag: sports journalism

Save the Leprechaun

Image: By University of Notre Dame Brand Standards, Fair use.

The Fighting Irish mascot came under fire in 2018 when ESPN’s Max Kellerman called on Notre Dame to do away with the leprechaun as Cleveland’s major league baseball team did with its mascot, Chief Wahoo. .. “Should that also change? The answer is yes. Unequivocally yes. Pernicious, negative stereotypes of marginalized people that offend, even some among them, should be changed.”

I believe the Irish would be more offended by being referred to as marginalized than “The Fighting Irish” depicted by a leprechaun in a boxing pose. The Irish have a sense of humor and who they are. Maybe Max Kellerman should interview many Irish people instead of believing. That is what real journalists do before flapping their soup coolers.

Having been around Irish Catholics all my life and working with them on the Chicago Police Department, I can assure people, Irish Catholics are not easily offended and do not consider themselves marginalized. There would be too many people walking around Chicago with a mouse,* broken noses, or other injuries if they were offended.

Just when you thought sports “journalism” woketivism could not get worse, it finally headed down the sewer. A recent survey by a sports apparel company, Quality Logo Products, rated the Fighting Irish logo, a caricature of a leprechaun, as the fourth most offensive football team logo, citing cultural appropriation and some other nonsense participants found offensive.

The survey polled over 1200 people. The small sample proves surveys are voodoo science. Evidently, the pollsters did not research the history of the term “Fighting Irish” or the logo and its comedic variations. History, like humor, has no place in woketivism. They probably did not get too many Irish to participate either.

What next, the Lucky Charms™ leprechaun logo? These woketivists are probably the same non-Irish people who dress up in fake cartoonish Irish garb, green face paint and spend all of St. Patrick’s Day, night, or weekend, drinking and puking their way through fake Irish pubs. You know, cultural appropriation?

Notre Dame was founded in November 1842 by Rev. Edward F. Sorin, C.S.C., a priest of the Congregation of Holy Cross, a French missionary order…. A man of lively imagination, Father Sorin named his fledgling school in honor of Our Lady in his native tongue, “L’Université de Notre Dame du Lac” (The University of Our Lady of the Lake). On January 15, 1844, the University was thus officially chartered by the Indiana legislature.”(University of Notre Dame)

How did a school started by French clerics, named after “Our Lady” (Mother of Christ), name their sports teams “The Fighting Irish?” Shouldn’t they have named the team the Feckless French?

“Notre Dame said its nickname, Fighting Irish, began as a term used by other schools to mock its athletic teams. At the time, anti-Catholicism and anti-immigrant sentiments were strong. Because Notre Dame was largely populated by ethnic Catholics – mostly Irish, but also Germans, Italians and Poles – the university was a natural target for ethnic slurs, it said. At one football game in 1899, Northwestern students chanted “Kill the Fighting Irish,” Notre Dame said.” (NYP)

At the time, Northwestern University was anti-Catholic and anti-Semitic. There are no wokists to demand apologies or destruction of monuments. Northwestern is one of the main producers of wokisits today.

The football team gained national prominence in the early 1900s. Sports journalists began to use the phrase, “fighting Irish.” “Soon, Notre Dame supporters took it up, turning what once was an epithet into an ‘in-your-face’ expression of triumph.” (University of Notre Dame)

University President, Father Matthew Walsh, of Irish descent, adopted the Fighting Irish name in 1927. As for the leprechaun, it is an intentional caricature depicting the Fighting Irish.

There is no large protest by the nation’s Irish or people in Ireland to change the nickname and logo. The only protests are from a small group of wokists who took the survey and a few interviews with members of the woke public. And, of course, ESPN’s Max Kellerman.

Yet, this issue is gaining traction in the news. The New York Post has a story and editorial piece on it. So does the Irish Times. Both do not support the wokists. Others reported on the issue, with a few interviews but no opinion.

All I can say is cowboy the f**k up wokists. Put your big girl and big boy pants on. If you are not Irish, you have no business sticking your St. Paddy’s Day drunken nose into this. If the Irish were offended, you would know it. By the way, Chicago and other areas Irish are the biggest fan base of the “Fighting Irish. Case f**king closed.

*Mouse is Chicagoese for a black eye.