Talk:Religious symbolism in U.S. sports team names and mascots

'Other Religions' Section
This needs to be cleaned up a considerable amount. At the moment it seems to be nothing more than poorly veiled antisemitism. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.220.187.219 (talk) 00:48, 4 May 2010 (UTC) Actually you know what, this whole article needs to be rewritten, or scratched altogether. It is not written in a very encyclopedic style, is biased, and includes things that have absolutely no factual basis, i.e. "Bokonic". 71.220.187.219 (talk) 00:54, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

This entire section is pure anti-semitism! "Jews have no dominant figures to rally behind"?! This is completely biased, and I am incredibly offended. Please get rid of this section —Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.56.251.144 (talk) 03:55, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

IMHO, this section reflects the author's ignorance rather than malice. There does seem to be a strong impression that the absence of overtly Jewish-themed mascots, relative to the much more abundant Christian-themed mascots, is out of proportion to the relative Jewish population of the USA, and possibly other English-speaking countries. Is that impression confirmed by reputable published research? If so, this would be the place to cite such research, and perhaps summarize the opinions of subject-matter experts as to why that is so. With such rewritten content as a start, this section would be worth keeping. Whether this section should retain the title "Other Religions", however, depends on whether notable and verifiable content for multiple "other" religions can be provided; as written now, the content mentions only Judaism, plus the dubious claim that "magic" is a religion. (4.248.222.171 (talk) 06:06, 14 September 2010 (UTC))

There's no supported assertion here that "magic" is a religion. Unless some source can be given that these teams were indeed named after religiously-inspired concepts, they shouldn't be included in the article; ergo, I have removed them for the time being. Hopefully, this isn't controversial; if it is, I'd be happy to discuss it here. Cheers, Zaldax (talk) 18:57, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Are all things mentioned here religious?
What is the religious significance of knights, lions, and monarchs? I worked at a high school on an Indian reservation whose nickname was the Knights, which was depicted as a typical knight in armor with some Native American trappings. I very much doubt there was any religious implications intended. Wschart (talk) 19:10, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Cleanup
A see also link was placed on one of the articles I edit, leading me here. Certainly needs a lot of work, so I will do some. A definition of religious symbolism cannot be so broad as to include knights and monarchs unless the team uses specifically religious images, e.g. a cross on a flag or armor. However, crusaders were specifically "holy warriors".--WriterArtistDC (talk) 16:49, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

Requested move 16 October 2021

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: Withdrawn WriterArtistDC (talk) 01:46, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

Religious symbolism in U.S. sports team names and mascots → List of U.S. sports team names and mascots derived from religious symbolism – Clarifying that this is a list article WriterArtistDC (talk) 00:36, 16 October 2021 (UTC) — Relisting. User:力 (power~enwiki, π,  ν ) 02:23, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Given the current and likely future content, an alternative would be List of U.S. sports team names and mascots derived from Christian symbolism, which would exclude four Valkyries, one Vulcan, and one Thor (which are more pop culture than religious); and the sole entry under Other religions.--WriterArtistDC (talk) 23:34, 17 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: WikiProject United States has been notified of this discussion. VR talk 02:55, 8 November 2021 (UTC)


 * Comment – Should this article be a list? I note that on 10 October 2021 (4 weeks ago), it looked like this, which has a lot of problems, but clearly isn't a list.  On that date   WriterArtistDC posted in the section above to say (correctly) that it needed a lot of work and since then they've rewritten the article to its current form.  It retains sections on Sports mascots and social identity and Crusader Mascot Controversy (is that capitalisation correct?) which have non-list content.  Also, it doesn't appear to be a list of sports team names and mascots as the proposed title suggests, but a list of (mostly) schools which have religiously named sports teams.  I don't see how that's a useful list to have, so I suspect if we convert it to a list, it may be deleted.  I'm also not clear how religious symbolism is established: is a St Bernard dog really a religious symbol?  Are Valkyries in a modern context?  Might it be a better idea to delete the list content and leave the article as a non-list stub? Havelock Jones (talk) 09:07, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Reply - The October version linked above had more text, but was clearly a list of schools. Much of that text was unsourced, and written as a personal essay, so when I deleted much of it this was more obviously a list. I did try to do some research to fill in textual content (which is not out of place in a list article) but found little. I use Google scholar and the George Mason University library, but there may be specialized sources in the academic literature of sports that are difficult to find. The websites of the schools themselves provide little context for their name and imagery choices. It would appear that "Saints" often came first, the dog mascots later.
 * Regarding the title and topic, it is clear that religious schools that call their athletic teams "Saints" or some other direct reference to religious identity is a coherent category for a list. The text is limited to the introductory description of sports mascots and their social functions in general, and the Crusaders controversy. Without the lists of schools, the introduction would serve no purpose and the controversy is too trivial to support an article. Some of the list items may be more pop culture than direct religious identification, and could be removed. -WriterArtistDC (talk) 14:56, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.