News and Record, repeat after me. CHARLOTTE
Yesterday afternoon the Charlotte 49ers got their second win in four tries this season over a top 25 opponent. Charlotte (15-4) defeated their arch-rivals, the #17 Cincinnati Bearcats (17-5), 91-90 in front of a sellout crowd at Halton Arena in Charlotte.
In the Greensboro News and Record this morning, in the write-up of in-state basketball, the headline for the game reads: "Cincinnati's Hicks scores 20, but UNC Charlotte gets win". Seems like an odd headline, because Hicks isn't exactly a phenom or anything, and the 49ers had 2 players with 20 or more points. So why mention Hicks's 20? I dunno. But that's not my beef with the paper.
My beef is in referring to the 49ers as "UNC Charlotte". While the name of the university is, indeed, the "University of North Carolina at Charlotte", the official name of the athletic department is the "Charlotte 49ers". It says "Charlotte" on their jerseys. It says "Charlotte" in the middle of the court. It says "Charlotte" on every sports ticker and headline on every major sporting news outlet. But not in the News and Record.
See, a few years ago the athletic dept. decided it didn't like having a name so similar to that faerie blue excuse for a program up in the Triangle. UNC-C looks and sounds too much like UNC-CH. Who would want to get confused with them? So the athletic dept. dropped the UNC prefix and changed the name (incidentally, with a new chancellor of the University coming in later this year, the entire school may change their name to University of Charlotte) from UNC Charlotte 49ers to the Charlotte 49ers.
I've emailed sports@news-record.com and alerted them to the error.
If the News and Record refuses to go by the preferred name of the athletic department because it's not the "true" name of the school, then I hope they will eliminate the double standard and stop referring to the Tarheels as "Carolina Tarheels" or "UNC Tarheels" and refer to them instead as the "UNC Chapel Hill Tarheels", which is the "true" name of that school.
In the Greensboro News and Record this morning, in the write-up of in-state basketball, the headline for the game reads: "Cincinnati's Hicks scores 20, but UNC Charlotte gets win". Seems like an odd headline, because Hicks isn't exactly a phenom or anything, and the 49ers had 2 players with 20 or more points. So why mention Hicks's 20? I dunno. But that's not my beef with the paper.
My beef is in referring to the 49ers as "UNC Charlotte". While the name of the university is, indeed, the "University of North Carolina at Charlotte", the official name of the athletic department is the "Charlotte 49ers". It says "Charlotte" on their jerseys. It says "Charlotte" in the middle of the court. It says "Charlotte" on every sports ticker and headline on every major sporting news outlet. But not in the News and Record.
See, a few years ago the athletic dept. decided it didn't like having a name so similar to that faerie blue excuse for a program up in the Triangle. UNC-C looks and sounds too much like UNC-CH. Who would want to get confused with them? So the athletic dept. dropped the UNC prefix and changed the name (incidentally, with a new chancellor of the University coming in later this year, the entire school may change their name to University of Charlotte) from UNC Charlotte 49ers to the Charlotte 49ers.
I've emailed sports@news-record.com and alerted them to the error.
If the News and Record refuses to go by the preferred name of the athletic department because it's not the "true" name of the school, then I hope they will eliminate the double standard and stop referring to the Tarheels as "Carolina Tarheels" or "UNC Tarheels" and refer to them instead as the "UNC Chapel Hill Tarheels", which is the "true" name of that school.
posted by Rustam Sheridan at
10:01
2 Comments:
Rusty, I don't know whether a conscious decision was made to use the school's name or the team's name. I'll check it out. I do suspect that the reason Hicks is in the headline is because he's from Greensboro and, frankly, the primary reason we care about the Bearcats.
By the way, the News & Record uses an ampersand, not the word "and." :)
John Robinson
Oh yes, I'd forgotten that Hicks is from Greensboro. That explains it.
Thank you for your response, Mr. Robinson.
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