The Marquette Gold -- reverse Midas touch

No, the name is not growing on anybody. No, it will never be accepted. This truly is the opposite of the Midas touch, because no matter what the university says or does now, it all turns to dreck.

This is the biggest PR disaster I've ever seen. It's worse than New Coke.

The best commentary can be found at Marquette Warrior.

Will this new name, "The Gold", hurt the teams? No, except they'll be objects of derision. Will it hurt recruiting? Well, it won't help, that's for sure. It certainly could undermine confidence in the administration.

For myself, and my children: I have serious second thoughts about sending them to a university that is so woefully trapped in the culture of Political Correctness, that is so tone-deaf to popular sentiment, and that is so inept as to pull a dopey stunt like this.

The only question is, when do they back down, admit a horrible mistake, and beg for mercy? That's got to happen for them to repair this at all.

And then -- what? Another new and equally hated name? Could be, but gosh, what kind of instabilty does that indicate, with three different team names in 11 years?

Would they go back to the Golden Eagles? Unlikely. They got into this mess in the first place because people disliked that name so much.

Back to the name everybody wants, the Warriors? Impossible; they've said too much about how horrible, how offensive, how un-Christian, that name is, to ever go back to it without completely losing face.

Although, if they had the guts to do it, they'd gain tremendous respect. That actually would be the smartest move they could make.

Kind of like reverting to Classic Coke.