Aztec Beat
“Go, Aztecs!”

By John J. Miller, NR national political reporter
May 21, 2001 11:10 a.m.

t must have been a heart-rending decision for San Diego State University president Stephen L. Weber. Last week, he

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announced that SDSU, whose sports teams use the nickname "Aztecs," would abandon the mascot they've had in place for 60 years, Monty Montezuma.

In the future, Monty will be known as Montezuma II, after the last Aztec emperor. And he won't be a mascot anymore, either. He'll be a "cultural ambassador."

"Montezuma will fulfill a role more befitting his position as an emperor and a spiritual and military leader," explained Weber. (To read his formal statement, click here.)

Does this mean teams losing to San Diego State University will find their players carted off to the nearest pyramid as sacrificial victims? The Aztecs — a society dominated by warriors — were famous for ripping the hearts from enemies who surrendered. Their religious ceremonies sometimes turned the steps of their temples into waterfalls of blood. (For some images of this cultural practice, click here.)

The SDSU decision has all the earmarks of a politically correct copout from the administration, but it's really not so bad. There's plenty of pressure on schools all around the country to abandon Indian team names — and the Aztecs, of course, were one of the two or three most advanced civilizations in the New World at the time of European contact. Last fall, Weber explicitly rejected calls from a handful of student activists and other ne'er-do-wells to ditch SDSU's entire affiliation with Aztecs.

The Aztec name is safe (for now) — it's Monty Montezuma who won't be around for long. All signs of him are already being removed from campus. He's a fearsome-looking fellow. (To see a few pictures, click here.)

But he's not an especially accurate rendition of an Aztec king. There's a bit of the Plains Indian about him. And shouldn't he be holding a knife in one hand and a still-beating heart in the other?

It's doubtful SDSU will go that far in its representation. Instead, the school will make its new mascot — oops, "cultural ambassador" — look more regal. He won't appear in red face, and he'll quit running around the sidelines during football games. Instead, he'll sit on a throne observing his namesakes as they do battle on the gridiron. The transition from Monty Montezuma to his successor (the real Montezuma II had no successor, of course) will be complete in 2003.

In the meantime, the student activists who helped propel this change say they won't be satisfied until SDSU renames its teams the Bears, or something equally pedestrian.

It's enough to make you want to cheer, "Go Aztecs!"