ADS-L Digest - 9 Sep 2006 to 10 Sep 2006 (#2006-253)

[James A. Landau]

Fred Shapiro wrote:

<q>
It is interesting that colleges sometimes are referred to in the sports
world differently from the way they are referred to in normal contexts.
Thus "Berkeley" is called "California" or "Cal" in the sports world.
"West Point" is called "Army" in the sports world.  "Annapolis" or "the
Naval Academy" is called "Navy" in the sports world.
</q>

I have been told that UC Berkeley's athletic teams are officially "California" or "U of California" (their teams were there first?)and all the other UC colleges have to specify their campi, e.g. UCLA.  Does anyone know if this be correct?

The "United States Military Academy" can be referred to in the sports world as "Army" because that is the US Army's sole presence in college sports and hence the usage is not ambiguous.  Furthermore in the sports world college teams are not referred to by the location of the campus (unless it is part of the name of the school, e.g. University of Louisville is "Louisville"), hence USMA would not be referred to as "West Point" by that rule.  Ditto for USNA and USAFA.

     Jim Landau
     Test Engineer
     Northrop-Grumman Information Technology
     8025 Black Horse Pike, Suite 300
     West Atlantic City NJ 08232 USA

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