THE ORIGINAL 49ers on the American River in the Gold Rush (Wikipedia).

Probably the most interesting thing about Long Beach State’s opening round 85-65 loss to Arizona in the first round of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament isn’t the fact that it was the coach’s last game or that it was the team’s first time in the tournament since 2012.

What caught my eye was the team name. Aren’t they the 49ers?

Nope. In response to the latest wave of misguided political correctness that washed over America’s college campuses in the last decade or so, the school mascot of 49ers – reflecting the school’s founding in 1949 – has been ash-canned because “As our diversity grew and more voices were heard, we came to know that the 1849 California gold rush was a time in history when the indigenous peoples of California endured subjugation, violence and threats of genocide,” said the college president back in 2018.

So the new name is “The Beach.” So, a male graduate can now be called “a son of the Beach.” Sorry, bad joke.

But so is the trend to hunt down athletic team names and expunge them for the cause of virtue signaling. There’s hardly a sports team name that can’t be attacked on some basis, flimsy or not.

Notre Dame Fighting Irish perpetuates the slur that Irish like to get drunk and fight. San Diego State Aztecs glorifies an imperialistic society that practiced human sacrifice and genocide against neighboring tribes and cultures in what is now Mexico.

University of Kansas Jayhawks celebrates abolitionist fighters in the Civil War era (good) who were a bit out of control (bad). Here’s how Union Gen. Henry Halleck described them: “No better than a band of robbers; they cross the line, rob, steal, plunder, and burn whatever they can lay their hands upon. They disgrace the name and uniform of American soldiers and are driving good Union men into the ranks of the secession [Rebel] army.”

In Major League Baseball, the Texas Rangers’ name is inspired by the law enforcement agency that – in its past – has credibly been accused of bias against Hispanics. 

The list goes on and on. And so does the silliness that gave us The Beach.