What's in a name?

Only the NCAA could come up with a policy as stupid as the one on Indian nicknames and mascots announced Friday.

Well, the NCAA and pretty much any government agency.

And Bud Selig. And Gary Bettman.

And the people behind some of the nuttier ballot initiatives.

And this wacky CEO of a software company I once worked for.

This is the same outfit (talking about the NCAA, here) that rather than having its top-tier football teams play for a national championship came up with a popularity contest instead.

So the NCAA has deemed certain mascots and nicknames (Braves, Indians, Seminoles, Redmen and Savages are but a few) to be "hostile" and "abusive." That's fine, it's within their purview to do so and we can agree or disagree.

But to then decide on this half-baked, dim-witted, wishy-washy lunacy of only banning these particular nicknames and mascots during postseason tournaments is a feat of remarkable incompetence, even for an organization that has given us the BCS.

(That's the second dig at the BCS so far. I detect a pattern emerging.)

What NCAA president Myles Brand and his merry gang of gnomes are saying is that these mascots are offensive, but only in the postseason. We're fine with it every other time.

That's like saying someone is an alcoholic, but only when they're drunk.

(Or, that's like saying Division I-A football can't have a playoff because players would miss too much class time. Enjoy that 12th regular season game we've approved, plus an exempt preseason "classic," a conference championship and a bowl game for a potential 15-game season, though!)

This policy - which doesn't apply to I-A football, by the way, since there is no official NCAA postseason tournament - is so devoid of logic and common sense as to make me wonder if we aren't all being "Punk'd."

If these nicknames are objectionable, fine. There is no divine right of membership in the NCAA, and if they decide that a school's mascot must pass their inspection to remain a part of the organization, then that's the way it is. Give the offending schools a year to come up with another lame mascot or face expulsion.

And really, Braves and Indians aren't so much objectionable as they are lame (sorry, Flathead, though it is a logical choice given the name of the school), as are most team nicknames. I mean, Indians is a 500-year-old geography mistake with staying power, and Braves is a synonym for Indians.

There are only a handful of truly inspired monikers out there, so why not change from one boring mascot - Braves - to another - say, Eagles - and make everyone happy?

I know, it's because it wouldn't make everyone happy. There is a vocal faction out there that is offended by the fact that someone else is offended by the nickname.

They're usually the ones who like to engage in a bit of revisionist history and claim that these mascots are meant to honor indigenous people. Yeah, right. I'm sure there was a regular Algonquin Round Table meeting to debate the merits of whether the nickname about to be chosen should "honor" Indians, leprechauns, bears or the color green.

(I do wonder about the thought process that led to the nickname for my alma matter, though. Oregon State Beavers is just plain silly, ripe for mocking, innuendo and double entendre - especially when playing the USC Trojans. And whoever thought it was a good idea to let the women's basketball team be known for a time as the Lady Beavers had to have been the most clueless person in history.)

And as long as we're discussing objectionable nicknames, what about the Ole Miss Rebels? They used to have the Confederate flag as part of their mascot/logo, for crying out loud. How is it in these times of post-9/11 hyper-patriotism that people still rally around the lasting symbol of a movement to destroy the United States? How is that patriotic? Something tells me the South would not have been singing "God Bless the U.S.A." back then. But I digress.

Some of the nicknames I can see as being offensive, like Redmen, Savages and even Fighting Sioux. But Seminoles, Utes, Illini, Choctaws and the like probably have meaningful connections with the tribes for which they are named (though their mascots probably creep toward stereotypes), and it's a matter that should be handled between those two parties.

The NCAA, as usual, has managed to completely bungle the issue and rather than solve anything has created more problems. But, that's what we've come to expect.

(I hate the BCS.)

This week's top 10 (down to one after nine items were banned by the NCAA for offensive titles):

-1. Raffy, Raffy, Raffy. In one failed drug test, Rafael Palmeiro has managed to completely discredit himself, torpedo his Hall of Fame chances, reinforced the shroud already hanging over the offensive records set during the last 10 years, legitimized baseball's drug testing policy and spawned a whole new barrage of Viagra-as-performance-enhancing-drug jokes.

And people say he was never the best at his position.

Andrew Hinkelman is a sports writer for The Daily Inter Lake. He can be reached at hink@dailyinterlake.com