New pro soccer team to be called Indy Eleven http://www.ibj.com/new-pro-soccer-team-to-be-called-indy-eleven/PARAMS/article/40987
I doubt our opinions will change the fact that they seem to be doing very well with building up excitement for the new team. I like the crest well enough and don't hate the name. It's odd, but nothing to get up in arms over.
It has a lot of history, like the San Fran 49'ers or the Oklahoma City 89'ers. The "Eleven" has a military historical context which could lead to great Tifo. I am just glad it isn't a gorilla.
It's not a bad name. It's neither a cookie-cutter North American pro sports team name, nor a cutsie North American minor league team name, nor is it a "Euro-poseur" name. It's original without being horrific. It won't be long before you all forget about its originality and come to view it as a perfectly normal name. My prediction. I've often wondered why soccer teams haven't used the "Eleven" name before, or at least not recently. If you've studied your sports history, it was not unusual to refer to sports teams by the number of players on the field, so for example 19th century baseball had the New York Nine. Old time cricket (and association football) teams were often referred to as "Elevens" (or XI); rugby union teams as XV, rugby league teams as XIII, etc. Now, if I were a billionaire and were setting up my own professional soccer team in Phoenix, Arizona, I'd have a lot of fun and annoy people to boot, and name my team the Phoenix XI, ie, the Phoenix Eleven but with Roman numerals. One, the Phoenix is a team name/mascot in its own right as it's a fire bird of mythology, so no real reason to spoil it by adding a second mascot/nickname. Two, Phoenix is a name that ends with the letters "ix". Follow it with the XI (Roman numeral eleven) and you've got....well, not a pun exactly, not even a partial palindrome really, but a bit of a leg pull or a prank at least. Or something. Point is, it will annoy people who deserve to be annoyed, whilst amusing the cognoscenti. Unfortunately I am not a billionaire. But I would be happy to advise anyone setting up a pro soccer team in Phoenix on their choice of club name.
Nah, no one should listen to some anonymous Big Soccer commentator. Anyway get that air conditioned, domed or moveable roofed SSS built in downtown Phoenix first. I have a relative who lived in Phoenix for a few years and according to him there are only two seasons over there: warm, and hot. But I don't have to tell you that.
We have, basically, six months of just about the best weather you can imagine (with occasional daily variations, obviously; this winter seemed colder than usual) about two months of pretty hot and about four months of hell. Unfortunately, hell happens during the traditional American soccer season. So unless we flop seasons or, yes, build a retractable roof stadium somewhere (not much space to do it downtown, though the Greyhound Park site would be ideal if the City didn't insist on holding onto it for potential future airport expansion), I think it's a non-starter. Back to the topic at hand, though: a friend brought up a good point to me the other day. Where in sports (or society, really) do we celebrate the Civil War? Revolutionary War, surely (76ers, Freedom, Patriots, etc.). We don't directly celebrate WWI or WWII but military motifs are not uncommon (Generals, Captains, Bombers, Stealth, etc.) The Charleston Battery, I believe, has a Civil War motif, and the Columbus Blue Jackets do (I think), but they're either fairly vague or (in Columbus' case) incredibly stupid. But you don't see a lot - that I can think of - of celebrations of The War Between The States or those who fought in it. There are re-enactments, obviously. And we all learn about the Civil War in elementary school, and some folks in certain regions still hold a grudge, but I can't think of a lot of celebrations of that period in our sports landscape. Maybe that makes this unique, which is good, I guess, or maybe there's a reason that era is best learned from but not constantly put forth through something that is supposed to be fun. We already have an overt (and fairly uncomfortable, for me, anyway) military ethos in the game. Supporters seem to quite often hurry to brand themselves as an "army" or a "battalion" or a "regiment," which is either mildly off-putting or faintly ridiculous (it feels sometimes like kids playing GI Joe). If people start feeling the need to play War Of Northern Aggression Dress-Up at some point, I don't necessarily see that as innocuous. Historical accuracy or not, uniqueness or not, someone could bring up the very simple, "If you have to explain it in such detail, maybe it's not the best choice," and I couldn't dismiss that perspective. But if it doesn't hurt them business-wise (and they have continued to sell season ticket deposits, obviously), it's just a matter of aesthetics. Which, valid though they may be to the beholder, are still subjective concerns and probably not mission-critical.
It used to be everywhere in Southern high school and college sports. Then a lot of it got purged over the past couple of generations . Most pro sports teams arrived in the South during that purge period so a lot of those motifs were, I'm sure, deliberately avoided. My hometown still has a Robert E. Lee high school nicknamed the Generals. As for those in the North and West, I've always gotten the sense that folks haven't usually considered the Civil War an event worth celebrating.
I can see it in the south and at the local level. I guess I meant at the pro level. I am sure there are several high schools with a rebel as a mascot and we know the Stars and Bars still resonate in some places and cause consternation in some others. The Atlanta Flames might have been another one. But that's still not overt. In a nationwide sporting context, we don't celebrate that particular period much that I can see.
IMO the name is a soccer reference and not a historical or civil war reference. IMO they tacked on the civil war bit to make the name sound more plausible, sort of like (again, IMO) the Atlanta Silverbacks nickname justification, which seems to me to be tacked on (plenty of other silverback gorillas in zoos in other cities, and why the gorillas, and not the lions and tigers and bears - oh my! - also in said zoos?). Check out the video of US Open Cup (1914-1938) pictures and newspaper headlines here: http://goal.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/02/u-s-open-cup-early-years/ Notice some of the newspaper headlines: "Bethlehem Eleven Shuts Out Rovers" for instance. "Eleven" seems to be the most common newspaper headline shorthand for "soccer team" in that era. Less common then was "booters" ("booters" was more common later; I recall it irking Paul Gardner back in the 1970s). Forget the Civil War. IMO "Indy Eleven" really means "Indianapolis Soccer Team", marketing talk be damned. Next up: why we need the "Baltimore Booters" in the NASL!
There was actually a quite (locally) famous silverback gorilla in Zoo Atlanta named Willie B. So the name is actually indigenous. Atlantans would get the reference, and that was kind of the target audience. And while none of us were privy to the internal deliberations in Indianapolis, it sure was serendipitous that they just happened to come up with the backstory to tack onto the end of the soccer reference name in time to announce it on the actual anniversary of the commissioning of the 11th Regiment, wasn't it? Baseball teams were also often referred to as "nines" (as in "the local nine") and gridiron teams were also often referred to as "elevens." And Ottawa's original hockey team was, officially, the Silver Seven. (Back when hockey teams had six skaters + a goalie.) Whatever you say, Anonymous Internet Guy! You were spot-on on Atlanta Silverbacks, how could I possibly not trust you?
Yeah, but there are locally famous silverbacks in zoos in other cities. What's the connection to the soccer team? It's a nice back-story, but it's a back-story. Something you add on to justify the name you've already chosen for whatever reason. IIRC there was an indoor soccer team named the Silverbacks long before the Atlanta Silverbacks. No connection to an actual gorilla. Last time I google-searched there were quite a few Silverback-nicknamed teams in various sports. It's just a name, like lions or tigers, that you give a sports team. There doesn't have to be a justification. Sure, they planned it out. It wasn't something they picked on the spur of the moment. That's what marking people do. But there were a lot of Indiana regiments in the Civil War, and there's nothing special about the 11th. Why would they chose that particular regiment, unless they wanted the name for its relevance to soccer? I mean sure it's cute that they made the tie-in, but don't piss on my boot and tell me it is raining. "Indy Eleven" a soccer team name with a number that also happens to be the number of a Civil War regiment. If they were starting a rugby union team they could have claimed it was named after the Indiana 15th, too, and with equal cause. Yes, as I noted upthread. That's why I generously attached a lot of "IMO" to that. No one is required to believe the official marketing justifications are they? It's not like they are in the honesty and openness business. I've noticed several times for instance that the "name the team" contests aren't on the up and up and remember Clive Toye's comments about how he fixed the name the team contest once he had already decided on the Cosmos name. Like I said, IMO. I don't take marketing stuff at face value. Not really worth arguing over.
I knew no matter how many "IMO" and "seems to me" I threw out there I'd get the Kenn treatment, but, again, my point here is marketing justifications and how believable they really are, not the "accuracy" of taking marketing justifications at face value. The point is not the gorilla, the point is the marketing "story", which I view skeptically. I've quite a few friends and relatives in the Atlanta area. They've never heard of Willie B.; "local fame" is finicky; lots of locals are unaware. Let's quote Kenn here: I've explained the Atlanta Silverbacks name to others. In detail. Blank looks resulted. They'd never heard of this "locally famous" gorilla and didn't see the point of naming a sports team after him. Atlanta Silverbacks would have been better off just saying "it's an animal. We traditionally name sports teams after animals." Done. But no, some marketing person - not a very good one - decided on the "locally famous gorilla" story; whether they chose the name first and invented the justification afterwards, or whether they discovered the "locally famous" gorilla first and named the team after him, is irrelevant to my point. Which is that it seems just like the kind of "narrative" that a marketing person would come up with. If it doesn't seem that way to you, then we differ. No big deal. So, my apologies but I take these kinds of marketing "stories" at less than face value. Before the name announcement, no one but Civil War specialists thought about the Indiana 11th. If it had been a baseball team, instead of a soccer team, would it have called itself "Indy Eleven", or would it have called itself "Indy Nine" and announced its name on the date that the Indiana 9th was commissioned? Let's be serious. A baseball team would have used "Indy Nine", not "Indy Eleven", if it were choosing a number as a name, since there are nine players on a baseball team, not eleven. Again: They (Indy Eleven) would have been better off saying: "it's a soccer team. Soccer teams have eleven players." Done. Much simpler. It's marketing. I chose not to take marketers at their word; after all, they are trying to sell me something. Even if it is something I want to buy, doesn't change the nature of marketing. And sometimes they are too clever for their own good.
While the Battery (more specifically White Point Gardens or Oyster Point) did play a large part in the Civil war, it actually was well known well before that. It was always a strategic location for the protection of Charleston and the Harbor. In the early 1700s several Pirates of note were hanged there. In the Revolutionary and the War of 1812 war it was a vital strategic location. It was the location for cannons all the way up to World War I.
Okay, I gotcha. I thought with the Fort Sumter thing, that was the impetus. So that's one less Civil-War inspired name.