APOSTLES AND TROJANS

A long, long time ago, many decades before he qualified for Medicare, Cranky attended elementary, junior high, and high school, in that order. The school he attended was a small Catholic school. Cranky wasn’t a Catholic. In fact, his mother was a staunch Episcopalian, meaning she attended church regularly but mostly out of habit and because at that time and place it was expected. But she was staunch.

Why Cranky (incidentally, he wasn’t called Cranky at the time) ended up at a Catholic school was never clear, but Cranky pretty much liked it. His relationships with the good nuns who ran the place were mostly positive. He has none of those memories of a ruler across the knuckles or over the skull that many others apparently have. And the school’s small size enabled Cranky to participate in sports to a much greater degree than if he had been at the substantially larger public school, which had bona fide jocks. Actually, “sports” is a misnomer because there was only one sport, basketball. But it was enough for Cranky, who in his high school years lived, slept, and ate b-ball. Well, maybe not ate, but you get the picture.

There was only one downside to the situation: the team’s name. The team was called the Apostles. It was bad enough playing at other Catholic schools, none of which saw the need to be so blatant in calling attention to their religious connections. Playing at a public school Cranky found downright embarrassing. Fortunately, the name was not on the basketball uniforms. Unfortunately, the Apostles’ cheerleaders saw to it that no one was ignorant of who the team looked to for inspiration:

Everywhere we go
People want to know
Who we are
So we tell them
We are the Apostles
Mighty, mighty Apostles

Cranky eventually graduated, moving on to a life involving some things of which the good nuns would approve, and some things otherwise. His ties with the locale of his youth were not cut completely, but they were intermittent and tenuous. So it was only in the last few years that Cranky learned the Apostles were no more. Sometime in the intervening years, the name had been changed. The Apostles are now the Trojans.

That’s right, the Trojans.

Certainly, Trojans is a name found in the sports world, the Trojans of the University of Southern California, for example. But if you were picking a name for your team in this day and age, would you really pick Trojans?

Cranky wishes he had the story on how the Apostles became the Trojans. Perhaps someday he will do a little research. In the meantime, the questions hang in the air. Were the good nuns so clueless as to not be aware of all the implications of the new name? Was the PTA too embarrassed to tell them? Or were the girls and particularly boys on the teams given a little too much freedom and input, leading them to one of those jokes that youngsters have been known to play on their elders?