Let's hear it for your University of North Dakota Fighting Farmers! No? How about Flickertails, Zombies, Rough Riders or, um, Roughriders?
The university, located in Grand Forks, this week released a list 1,172 unique suggestions, along with accompanying commentary, that will be eligible for consideration to become the university athletic teams' new nickname, the Duluth (Minn.) News Tribune reported.
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Among the thousands of submissions were names looking to capture a piece of North Dakota ("Fighting Farmers") or the university ("Aviators" because of its well-known flight school), as well as those that were silly, profane or, yes, the nickname the school retired in 2012 amid controversy, the Fighting Sioux, and is now looking to replace after a three-year cooling-off period.
The nicknames were then placed on a 214-page list of eligible nicknames or a 628-page list of those that won't be considered.
Submissions were placed on the non-consideration list for reasons such as they are unavailable from an Internet domain-name standpoint; they can't be used under NCAA policy; or they contain profanity or other inappropriate language.
A Nickname Committee will vet the submissions, using a points system to score attributes and functionality, according to the News Tribune, and a short list of finalists will go to a public vote, likely sometime this year, a school spokesman said.