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CONTROVERSY
Should SFU ditch its Clan name? A CLOSER LOOK By Cornelia Naylor
cnaylor@burnabynow.com
Coach Allison McNeill hadn’t really thought much about the name of SFU’s sports teams until she brought her women’s basketball team to the American South for the NAIA (National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics) national championships for the first time in 1990. She remembers the 32 competing teams sitting down for a banquet in Jackson,Tennessee and each team being introduced and applauded in turn – until SFU’s turn came up. “They said, ‘the Simon Fraser University Clan,’ and there was an absolute hush around the room,” she said. At first the SFU players and coaches were confused, thinking it might have something to do with them being Canadian, McNeill said. They only clued in after the guest speaker, U.S. soccer star Kyle Rote Jr., stepped up to the podium and took it upon himself to explain the team name, McNeill said. Aside from a 10-year partial transfer to Canadian Interuniversity Sport between 2000 and 2010, SFU has spent most of its existence competing in the U.S., first in the NAIA and, since 2010, in the NCAA as a Division 2 school. For decades, SFU coaches and athletes have found themselves explaining the team name to American competitors to differentiate it from that other Klan, the white supremacist hate group, the Ku Klux Klan. Holly Andersen, an SFU philosophy professor originally from Montana, says it’s time to pull the plug – especially in light of recent Neo-Nazi and Klan rallies as close to home as Seattle. She has launched a petition aimed at convincing the powers that be to change the SFU team name. “I think the term ‘clan’ has vastly different meanings in the U.S. and in Canada,” she told the NOW, “and so, in the Canadian context, it’s not a problematic term. But in the U.S. context, it’s one of the worst words you can say.”
PROUD SCOT: Richard White, who played football at SFU between 1979 and 1982, is proud of his Scottish roots and sees the university’s team name “the
Clan” as a symbol of unity and resilience. To the Americans he played against, though, the name invoked the spectre of the Ku Klux Klan. PHOTO CORNELIA NAYLOR
Since SFU has invited itself into the NCAA, “into their house,” Andersen said, it’s disrespectful, especially to black American opponents, for the university to keep competing under a name with so much racist baggage. “Everybody in the U.S. knows that that’s not what the Canadians mean by it,” she said. “There’s nobody who thinks we’re actually members of the Ku Klux Klan. Nevertheless, it’s like standing in someone’s face and swearing at them really loudly.” With the university already in the NCAA and getting ready to build a brand new stadium on Burnaby Mountain by 2020, An-
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dersen said the time is perfect for a name change. Without it, SFU will make it hard for her and others who share her view to get behind the university’s sports teams, she said. “It’s just not a thing you can cheer or be proud of,” she said. Some SFU sports alumni disagree. McNeill, who after 13 seasons at SFU and 11 trips to the NAIA nationals went on to coach Canada’s national women’s basketball team for 11 years, said she was always proud of the university’s unique team name. “We used the name when we talked
about our teams – we’re family, we stick together, we work together,” she said. That being said, McNeill said discussion is always good. “Maybe it has to be looked at, but I know, traditionally, it was a positive thing for our team,” she said. Richard White, who played football at SFU from 1979 to 1982 before playing four years in the CFL, is even more passionate about the team name. “It would be very painful for me, a name change,” said the Oakville, Ont. native. Continued on page 10
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