Sports Name Changes: Political Correctness Gone Too Far?

For the last several years, one of the main topics of discussion is making sure everyone is “politically correct” about anything and everything. Doesn’t matter what the item of the day was, just so long as everyone was so “politically correct” as to not offend anybody else.

And every time I find myself asking the question, “Isn’t this ‘political correct’ thing going a bit too far?”

Case in point – The Associated Press reported on a story about a town in Maine, where officials voted earlier this week to grant a resident’s request to rename her street after the local high school’s former mascot.

The street’s new name – Redskin’s Drive. And the new name is drawing criticism from Native Americans.

Ben Rines, one of the officials who approved the change, told the Portland Press Herald the name honors generations of Wiscasset High School graduates who identify with the word Redskins, himself included.

But Newell Lewey, a Passamaquoddy tribal councilor, called the name change racist and "disgraceful."

This story, by the way, is very similar to the one currently going on with the Washington Redskins, where groups are asking Washington to change their nickname because the term Redskins is "disparaging to Native Americans."

Former Chicago Bears coach and ESPN analyst Mike Ditka said it best in an interview with Mike Richman of RedskinsHistorian.com:

It (the Redskins name) was said out of reverence, out of pride to the American Indian. Even though it was called a Redskin, what are you going to call them, a Proudskin? This is so stupid it’s appalling, and I hope that owner keeps fighting for it and never changes it, because the Redskins are part of an American football history, and it should never be anything but the Washington Redskins. That’s the way it is.