WOo Hoo! They are nucking futs now!

PETA is swaying the NCAA


Just when you thought this NCAA mascot flap couldn't get any sillier, those animal-rights loving folks from PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) jumped right through the door opened by the NCAA's Executive Committee and asked them to extend the ban on nicknames considered "hostile and abusive" to include animals.

The first salvo fired was at the nickname "Gamecocks," used by both Jacksonville State University and the University of South Carolina. PETA has written a letter to NCAA executive director Myles Brand asking that the NCAA pressure those schools to change that nickname, or else face the same ban on hosting and possibly participating in post-season play that the NCAA says it will apply to schools using names that refer to Native Americans.

In essence, PETA is asking the NCAA to reduce this theoretical humiliation of Native Americans to the level of chickens. Or perhaps, in PETA's feather-lined way of thinking, it's elevating the plight of Native Americans to that of these poor (but apparently not entirely defenseless) birds.

Logically, PETA's request makes sense. As Rep. Tom Feeney (R-Fla) said, "If the NCAA has to protect offended Native Americans ... by God, PETA ought to advocate for the protection of every living organism in the animal kingdom."

Either way, somebody will be offended, which we can't have because the ''freedom from being offended" is apparently buried somewhere in an overlooked part of the Bill of Rights.

Who is offended and who is not and what a reasonable response to those people might be is not what I want to take issue with here, however. What this whole issue once again screams about is the bloated bureaucracy that the NCAA has become.

In a commentary both on the NCAA website and in USA Today, the NCAA's Brand plays Pontius Pilate, washing his hands of any guilt associated with this controversy. He writes, " ... neither I nor any member of the NCAA staff had a vote. The decision was made by a dozen chancellors and presidents from all three membership divisions appointed to represent their institutions, their conferences and the values of higher education ... "

In other words, Brand says he supports the decision, but he wants to make it clear he had nothing to do with it. That's typical NCAA, handing down unreasonable decisions then passing the buck on to the often nameless and faceless "chancellors and presidents" of its member institutions.

Gamecocks is barbaric.