Respect can be a tricky term at times in sports.

It may seem pretty straightforward, but when it comes to team logos, fans seem to have different definitions. 

Those contrasting ideas were definitely on display at the Cleveland Indians home opener on April 10 when some protested the team’s use of their Native American caricature, Chief Wahoo, while at the same time, other fans wore it with pride and weren’t shy in doing so.

The debate over using Native Americans as logos or mascots has been going on since at least the 1970s and it’s not going to go away anytime soon. 

There’s a lot of passion on both sides, with some tribal members claiming that sort of imagery is offensive and while some fans claim that the logos and/or mascots are honoring the tribes.

I used to be one of the latter and I’ve had a lot of experience with the issue. 

Growing up in the mid-1990s, my high school decided to change its nickname. It had been the Braves for years, but the district decided to be progressive and held a vote to decide on a new nickname. 

Eventually, we adopted the Blaze and its human fireball, Sparky, as our new mascot. It’s an odd choice, I’ll admit, but when your school almost burned down due to arson, it’s kind of appropriate.

Although some people remained passionate about their allegiance to the Braves, those eventually died out and Blaze has been pretty much adopted by everyone. 

At the time, I never understood why we needed to change the name. I thought the logo was cool and from what I saw, nobody was really being overtly offensive about it. Nevertheless, I went along with it and when people say Braves, it seems out of place.

That wasn’t my only time dealing with the idea of a logo change. 

After graduating high school, I moved on to the University of North Dakota and whatever passionate support for a logo I saw at home paled in comparison to what I experienced in Grand Forks. Seriously, the logo is almost everywhere despite the school’s attempts to eliminate it. 

People are now well aware of the long-standing situation at UND and as an alum, I’ve been asked about it sometimes since I’ve moved up here. 

When the NCAA issued its famous ruling banning offensive imagery, which to be honest could be just about anything, I was virulently opposed to it. I thought this was a great overreach by people in power and very hypocritical. 

My friends and I would deck ourselves out in Fighting Sioux gear for hockey games and we found it ridiculous that the NCAA was going after us, but was fine with Florida State doing the Tomahawk Chop and having a guy dress in war paint ride an Appaloosa around the field. To this day, I can’t cheer for the Seminoles.

During that time, if you’d asked me about the logo, I would’ve probably come off as an angry YouTube commenter. However, after I graduated and officially started my writing career, I started to adapt to the times. As UND continued to stumble its way toward resolving the issue, I honestly stopped caring about it. 

After a lawsuit, legislative action, a pointless logo “transition period” and a ridiculously drawn-out voting process (which my wife was apart of)

the Fighting Sioux are now the Fighting Hawks, a name that nobody truly supported and hasn’t united the fanbase at all. 

Not only that, but the wildly popular Sioux logo has now been replaced by a knockoff of the U.S. Postal Service. Nobody handles a problem like UND does.

With the name change officially in place, UND has tried to move forward and some of us alums have as well. But a sizable group has yet to do so and love to inform people of that. 

During the 2016 national championship and even this year’s NCAA basketball tournament, you’d hear the “Let’s go Sioux!” chant loud and clear. It is fun to listen to because it really shows how much the fans love the team, but it also shows the rest of the athletic world that we would rather embrace the past instead of the future. It’s sad, frankly, but part of me understands why.

What makes college sports different than the pros is that the former seems to be willing to change, whereas the latter either resists or flat-out refuses to do so. 

Cleveland has tried to “de-emphasize” the use of Chief Wahoo as a primary logo and use a block-letter C, but it’s been a weak attempt as the chief was featured pretty prominently during the playoffs last year. 

Major League Baseball isn’t exactly resolving the issue, either, as it says it’s had “conversations” about steps and their process, but doesn’t elaborate on what is involved in said talks and process. So basically little has been accomplished on this issue and the idea of “respect” in Cleveland’s case seems to be we’ll listen to both sides, but we’re not going to do anything to fully address it.

When you get down to it, though, respect comes down to realizing that even though something is important to you, the people that you claim you are honoring may not feel the same way. 

At that point, you have to ask yourself if it is really that important that you cling desperately to something as frivolous as a logo or a nickname. And if things do change, are you going to completely abandon your team, your school or your city over that? 

My guess is no, so why not embrace what is happening. It’s well known that change is never easy as is obviously the case with UND, but as time goes by, you realize that in the end, it wasn’t that big of a deal in the first place.

I learned that eventually, and hopefully some day, more Cleveland fans will as well.

Ryan Stieg can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 252. His email address is rstieg@miningjournal.net.