Within the last decade, there plenty of UH team nicknames.
The women's teams were all Rainbow Wahine.
The men's teams had different names.
The football team were Warriors! The men's basketball team were Rainbow Warriors! The baseball team were the Rainbows!
Rainbows, Warriors, Rainbow Warriors ------ can you all just make up your damn mind already?
That's what Ben Jay was thinking when he got hired as the UH athletic director.
Ben Jay
It was time for consistency! A decision had to be made!
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The UH teams were the Rainbows since the 1920's
It happened long ago, in 1923 to be exact. Hawaii's Fighting Deans staged an epic 7-0 upset of Oregon State, and a rainbow appeared over the field. It must have looked, it must have felt, much the way it did that December day last year when a brilliant arc, a perfect rainbow materialized in the Aloha Stadium sky after Hawaii had punted BYU.
And in those early days, every time there was a rainbow, the team won. Every time there was a rainbow in the valley, the team won.
Yep, the Rainbow was the good luck charm for UH
http://www.hawaiiathletics.com/sports/2012/6/18/GEN_0618120234.aspx?tab=uhtraditions
UH Rainbow symbol
But as time went on, the Rainbow was later considered a bad luck charm for UH!
There was a stigma surrounding the rainbow
There was a stigma surrounding the rainbow
You see, the gay rights movement had their adopted own rainbow symbol! Yep, rainbows have become a "gay symbol"!
Wikipedia
No, this has NOTHING to do with UH sports
No, this has NOTHING to do with UH sports
And in the macho world of sports, you do not want to be thought of as "gay".
The Rainbow symbol had made it harder for UH coaches to recruit from the continental US where the rainbow is ridiculed as a "gay symbol"
a quote from Joe Moore
"Since former coach June Jones took it upon himself to drop ‘Rainbow' from the name Rainbow Warriors, I have not liked the change. When I expressed my opinion on the air, Jones phoned me and said he couldn't recruit the quality players he needed if they were called Rainbows.
"When I asked why, he said, ‘Because they don't think it's manly or tough enough.'
"When I asked if he didn't consider it part of his job to enlighten his recruits about the uniqueness and significance of the rainbow in the school's history and Hawaiian culture, he said, ‘Good luck with that.'
So in 2000, then-UH football coach June Jones (with Hugh Yoshida's approval) told the world that we are no longer Rainbows, we are now Warriors!
http://kegsneggsblog.com/2011/05/11/life-lessons-from-june-jones/
"Dont call me a Rainbow!"
That's after athletic director Hugh Yoshida acknowledged the decision to change the logo stemmed, in part, from concerns about how the rainbow has become a symbol of gay pride and acceptance.
"That logo really put a stigma on our program at times in regards to it's part of the gay community, their flags and so forth," Yoshida told KGMB-TV in remarks aired yesterday. "Some of the student athletes had some feelings in regards to that."
Yoshida made the statement after a ceremony on campus Wednesday at which the new logo was unveiled. During that ceremony, attended by 500 invited guests, assistant women's volleyball coach Charlie Wade also alluded to the rainbow's gay theme.
"I can't be certain, but I think that the rainbow had something to do with a flight attendant giving me his phone number one time," Wade told the audience.
And this was how the rainbow symbol got replaced with the more macho H-tiki symbol
http://www.hawaiiathletics.com/sports/2012/6/18/GEN_0618120234.aspx?tab=uhtraditionsThe H-tiki symbol
But some Hawaii fans got upset at the name and symbol change. After so many decades of cheering for the "Rainbows", it was hard for many to deal with change!
But as mentioned earlier, some of the other men's teams still had "rainbows" in their name.
With Ben Jay coming in, there had to be a unified nickname for UH sports teams.
There was talk in having all men's teams go back to being the "Rainbow Warriors"
After all, June Jones has been gone for years. And plus, who cares if "rainbows are gay"? Gay marriage is getting increased support, that even pro athletes have been publicly supporting that!
But it was not to be this time around!
All the men's teams are now just Warriors!
But a new issue has come up!
I am very glad action has been taken toward naming all the teams the same, finally.
I say "toward" because men's and women's teams with different names is less than ideal. This is 2013, and the government is allowing women to be full-on warriors in the military. But they can't be Hawaii Warriors. Those who say it's sexist not to name them all the same — regardless of gender — are correct.
But I get it. Good luck deleting the history-rich moniker "Wahine" from UH women's sports while also removing the final traces of a 90-year-old name from the men.
To solve that issue, I was thinking of
Men's teams = Kane Rainbow Warriors
Women's teams = Wahine Rainbow Warriors
But those names are Three words long! Having Three Word Nicknames probably isn't that marketable!
Maybe just this
Men's teams = Kane Wariors
Women's teams = Wahine Warriors
Even if the Rainbow name is taken out, we can still put the small rainbow symbol somewhere on the side of the uniform, with the H-tiki symbol still front and center!
Even if the Rainbow name is taken out, we can still put the small rainbow symbol somewhere on the side of the uniform, with the H-tiki symbol still front and center!
But whatever we call the teams, the main thing is we can call them winners at the end of the season
