Once upon a time, Eastern had its' own mascot controversy, too

Long before the University of North Dakota was making headlines for having one of the most controversial mascots, The Fighting Sioux, Eastern Washington State College found itself in its own storm over the use of the name Savages.

The mascot issue naturally percolates at a slightly more intensive boil when the UND no-names come to Roos Field this Saturday for a Big Sky Conference football game against the Eastern Washington University Eagles.

Because on Homecoming Weekend, scattered about the P-12 tailgating, there will be a mix of both Eagles and Savages, the latter certainly more identifiable by more grey hair and bi-focals, because the former mascot hit the dusty trail over 40 years ago.

The Washington Redskins of course are the current poster guys of the mascot miff. Measures in Congress, championed prominently for some reason by Sen. Maria Cantwell from “the other Washington,” and efforts to defrock team owner Daniel Snider of trademark protection, keep things simmering.

According to topcollegesonline.com, the meat —meaning the money — of the North Dakota story goes back to 2007 when the NCAA announced that schools with offensive nicknames, logos or mascots would be subject to sanctions. The most notably penalties were postseason bans, huge to UND hockey which reached the NCAA Frozen Four this year and makes semi-regular visits to that yearly championship event.

What has ensued since have been battles in and out of court, in the state capital in Bismarck and with the NCAA. A state-mandated “cooling off” period is in effect until 2015, when the school will select a new name, so North Dakota will continue to identify sports teams with an entwined ND.

The EWSC mascot story was a little less complicated but mirrors much of what has gone on in Grand Forks, except there were far less lawyers involved.

Cheney State Normal School did not have a mascot when the school began intercollegiate athletic competition, according to EWU historian, Charlie Mutschler.

“Selecting a mascot came long after the school’s athletic teams were well established, and may have drawn from the existing American Indian thematic elements at the school,” he wrote in an article on the subject.

There was the school’s literary magazine, “Kinnikinick,” and in 1916, the graduating class purchased the statue of Sacajawea, which found a home in the administration building, Showalter Hall.

“The selection of the Savage mascot may be seen as an effort to retain an overall American Indian theme in student life,” Mutschler wrote.

And that’s the way it stayed from 1923 until the spring of 1973. The Savages remained the school athletic mascot while numerous name changes took place at Cheney Normal, which became Eastern Washington College of Education in 1937, Eastern Washington State College in 1961 and EWU in 1977.

In 1972 the college’s board of trustees began the effort to change the mascot and opted to discontinue use of the Savages’ mascot at the end of spring quarter, 1972.

The board reversed that decision in their June 1972 meeting, re-established the Savages as the mascot, but created an ad hoc committee to re-evaluate the mascot.

After receiving input from students, alumni, faculty the general public and American Indian tribes, the trustees voted at their Jan. 19, 1973 meeting to stop using the mascot at the end of spring quarter, 1973.

But it was not yet a done deal.

The Associated Students held an election to choose a mascot and again, Savages won by a large majority. Students cast 950 votes to retain the mascot, 52 checked “Braves” while “Appaloosa” earned 39 votes according to a Dec. 28, 1972 Cheney Free Press.

The trustees stood fast and at a student election in the spring they voted to make the Eagles the new EWSC mascot. The Eastern Eagles made their debut in September, 1973.

But the Savages never completely left campus until just a decade ago when the final vestiges of the mascot — those etched into bricks leading into the EWU athletic complex — succumbed to the sandblaster in 2004.

Paul Delaney can be reached at pdelaney@cheneyfreepress.com.