ann arbor is overrated.

New High School Name Provokes Political Posturing

Ever since the AAPS announced the two names under consideration for the new high school, Skyline and Northcrest, there’s been a lot of complaining (the Daily seems to think that one of the names is “Northridge”.) But here’s an argument we hadn’t heard yet: the names should be rejected because they’re “politically correct.” Perhaps the concern is that substrings like “north” and “sky” might make people think about global warming or something.

37 Responses to “New High School Name Provokes Political Posturing”

Excellent - somebody actually did propose ‘Schembechler High.’
posted by Laura on December 5th, 2006 at 11:36 am
I think “The Schembechlers” should be the team name.

…The Lousma High Fightin’ Schembechlers. (that’s the ticket)
posted by OFWinsurgent on December 5th, 2006 at 2:15 pm
Gimme an “S” - S!

wait a second, that’s going to take wayyyy too long.
posted by LittleB on December 5th, 2006 at 4:42 pm
What’s a Bo Schembechler?
posted by Anonymous on December 6th, 2006 at 1:22 am
They couldn’t even spell Bo’s first name right.
posted by HNG on December 6th, 2006 at 9:26 am
oh jesus. here we go again. its a friggin game. he was a friggin coach. sometimes it seem like people in this state can’t get their head’s out of their football behinds to see what really matters in this world. newsflash: football ain’t it.
posted by oh jesus on December 6th, 2006 at 1:06 pm
oh Jesus
I want to start my comments by saying I think naming the high school after Bo is a horrible idea and I disagree with most if not all of his political views.

That said, I think some of the attributes that make Bo so beloved in this state go beyond football. I know personally his passing affected me more than I expected, and it was because of the memories it brought back of times I spent with my grandfather watching and talking about Michigan football.

I think Bo is thought highly of because of his committment to the University, yes football was how he got connected to the school, but his efforts in fundraising for the university and cancer research were monumental. He could easily have made more money had he gone elsewhere, but he stayed at Michigan. In this day and age that is a rare quality and I would hazzard to guess if you had talked to him you would realize that being a football coach was his job, but that he too would say football isn’t what really matters in this world. Something many coaches wouldn’t say, and that’s part of the reason why he’s beloved.
posted by andy on December 6th, 2006 at 1:42 pm
I’m not a Michigan alum, and I’m not a football fan. But I support naming the school for Schembechler because Schembechler is authentic and local, whereas those vapid names chosen by the committee are not.

It’s utter nonsense to claim that we don’t name public schools schools for people around here. Let’s see, there’s Eberwhite, Tappan, Slauson, Bach, Mack, Forsythe, Dicken … I think the only exceptions are Lakewood, Pioneer, Huron, Community, and Northside. And pretty much all of the people schools are named for are local.
posted by Larry Kestenbaum on December 6th, 2006 at 3:04 pm
Even “pioneer” and “Huron” could arguably be counted among those named, if indirectly, for people — only groups rather than individuals.

Personally, I wish they would come up with a name that means something, rather than two bland words that sound like a subdivison and a chili shop.
posted by Jen on December 6th, 2006 at 5:04 pm
How about Ann Arbor Bo?

oh jesus, football is what really matters. You need to get your priorities set straight.
posted by James on December 6th, 2006 at 5:45 pm
What’s wrong with naming it after Schembechler? He seemed to be an honorable coach that preached something more than football.

Naming it after Lousma would never fly around here since he was part of the Military Industrial Complex. Someone would protest it.
posted by Kozzie_13 on December 7th, 2006 at 4:13 pm
Anybody think ‘Pretentious High School’ would be a good name? I mean, why go with something like ‘Skyline’ or ‘Northcrest’ when you can go straight to the source?

‘Wannabe Suburbia’ seems a little too long a name, and ‘Overrated High’ sounds like a drug reference, though perhaps a drug reference would be appropriate for a high school these days…?
posted by David on December 8th, 2006 at 12:03 pm
“its a friggin game. he was a friggin coach. sometimes it seem like people in this state can’t get their head’s out of their football behinds to see what really matters in this world. newsflash: football ain’t it.”

Naming a local building after a resident who had an immeasurable impact on the community? What a terrible idea.
posted by Daniel Adams on December 8th, 2006 at 1:47 pm
Not to knock the man, but did Bo do anything for *Ann Arbor*, as opposed to the University? He was an icon at UM and rightfully has a building there named after him. I’m just not sure he’s the most deserving person for a city high school.

And speaking of drug references, won’t Skyline High quickly become Sky High?

I don’t have a better suggestion for a name, but the school color should be orange, to complete the trio of secondary colors for our high schools. That should be sufficiently egg-headed and obscure.
posted by mcammer on December 8th, 2006 at 9:46 pm
“Not to knock the man, but did Bo do anything for *Ann Arbor*, as opposed to the University?”

I didn’t realize that the two were so easily separable.

Tens of thousands of Ann Arbor residents, along with equal (if not greater numbers) of out-of-towners pack a stadium six weekends a year from Sept through November. Football is a tradition here - something that the city is known for nationwide - in large part because of Schembechler.

But yeah, what did Bo ever do for Ann Arbor?
posted by Daniel Adams on December 9th, 2006 at 11:09 am
There are Ann Arbor schools are named for University presidents. Tappan, Angell, etc. I realize that a lot of the local Ann Arbor history I learned as a kid was because of all the things named after local people.

In Berkeley, where I live now, the tradition seems to be to name things after national figures who the kids would presumably hear about anyway (and then rename them after other national figures when they decide the first one was evil). That seems to me a missed oportunity.

Northcrest just sounds like an unimaginatively named subdivision, which the neighborhood around the new school has some of. The Bay Area has lots of stuff named Skyline along the ridges on both sides of the Bay (two Skyline Boulevards and at least one Skyline High School, among other things), but the name fits there. It would also be an ideal name for something at the top of a downtown sky scraper, in the “New York skyline” or “Chicago skyline” sense. Neither of those fits Ann Arbor at all.
posted by scg on December 9th, 2006 at 7:46 pm
I was kidding guys.

I don’t give a rat’s ass about Michigan football. I just like the alliteration of a mascot called the Schembechlers. It’s perfect.

There was a band in Columbus called the Dead Schembechlers, but they hung it up when Bo croaked.
posted by OFWinsurgent on December 9th, 2006 at 9:22 pm
i’m hoping the mascot is the salamanders.

(and the schembechler salamanders has a nice ring, no?)
posted by peter honeyman on December 10th, 2006 at 9:30 am
I’ve got a better idea than naming a school after a local community leader or educator–let’s name the school after a line of toilet and other bathroom products!

Oh wait, the committee already suggested that idea; how do I know? Well, my son is being taught how to use our Skyline right now!

Hmm…maybe toilets can be educational, too.
posted by sheldon on December 11th, 2006 at 6:23 pm
I know I said this in another thread but I’ll say it here as well.

Pioneer got it’s name from the sports team mascot, the Ann Arbor High Pioneer’s when Huron was built. Pretty much anything is a step up in original thinking from that.

I’d rather see the school named for someone closer to the public schools, like a former teacher.
posted by colin j. on December 15th, 2006 at 6:00 pm
Pretty much anything is a step up in original thinking from that.

I went to Lyons Township, home of the Lyons Township Lions.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on December 15th, 2006 at 8:52 pm
I feel that it is ridiculous how all you people waste your time writing and smashing a town that you supposedly hate. Do you really have nothing better to do with your lives? It just doesnt make any since, if you hate it than fine, but then dont go around obsessing over it, and if you like it than you should get a life (and so should I, because I love but just cant help telling all of you how dumb you are, you arent going to the high school, i am. It really doesnt matter what you think, it matters what i think and my future classmates, so just shut up) and forget the “over rated” ace duece.
posted by a2love on December 31st, 2006 at 2:48 am
wait no, that last part didnt make since. I meant:

if you like it than you should get a life (shit in paranathese) and forget about these losers.

and than continue on to the next sentences.
posted by a2love on December 31st, 2006 at 2:49 am
a2love, the word is then, not than. thrice.

i’ll shut up now so you can continue with your rant that doesn’t make since on how dumb us losers are.
posted by peter honeyman on December 31st, 2006 at 9:12 am
Paranthese.

Ace Duece.

WINNER~!
posted by HNG on December 31st, 2006 at 7:28 pm
nothing can be done in this town without a commitee of pompus dumbfucks watering down any originality, creativity or spontaneity which might othewise have been present. All this in the name of sensitivity.
posted by a2tom on January 9th, 2007 at 11:32 am
And this is so typical a response from a person who has no idea who was on the committee and what the process was. It is easy to criticize what you don’t know just because you didn’t like the outcome. And how did you ever think sensitivity came into play into the decision?
posted by ELN on January 9th, 2007 at 8:48 pm
Hang around this town long enough and you become very cynical about this kind of “process”. The “process” is always carefully designed to come up with an outcome within a certain predetermined range, like “choices” offered to an elementary school class.

In other words, it is completely appropriate to reject the outcome AND the “process”. As they used to say, the proof is in the pudding. A process that generates banal, corporate names like “Northcrest” and “Skyline” is precisely as worthless as the outcome.

I’m not a big fan of Jerry Ford or Bo Schembechler, but were it up to me, I would name the school for either of them in a heartbeat. At least those names are authentic and local.

Neil Staebler or Jack Lousma (actual products of Ann Arbor schools) would have been even better.
posted by Larry Kestenbaum on January 10th, 2007 at 8:30 am
I think you are spot on, but it’s not just this town.
posted by Chris on January 10th, 2007 at 9:36 am
In the case of the new school naming process, I think it’s possible to trace the outcome to a specific decision made consciously and explicitly by the committee fairly early on in the process: the new high school name would fit the ‘pattern’ of the other two high schools’ names, and therefore not be named after people.

This reflects the limitless capacity of the human mind to find ‘patterns’ based on extremely limited data … which is great for infants acquiring language, but maybe not so great for naming new high schools.

But even if you grant that ‘Pioneer’ and ‘Huron’ count as a pattern in that sense, it’s interesting that the decision would be to FIT the pattern as opposed to BREAK the pattern. But it’s perhaps not all that surprising, given the strong community commitment to absolute equity across high schools in every dimension. [From conversations with parents on my street, I gather that a proposed downtown location for the new school eventually foundered partly on the fact that for kids unfortunate enough to attend that school, the travel to an outlying soccer or football field would represent a disadvantage compared to the onsite facilities for Pioneer and Huron athletes.]
posted by HD on January 10th, 2007 at 9:51 am
Maybe I’m just a freak (you think?) but as a parent of kids in the AA school system, I’d think being in a downtown high school would be an ADVANTAGE and I’d feel very sorry if mine were stuck out in the boondocks at Huron.
posted by Chris on January 10th, 2007 at 10:53 am
In my oppinion Schembechler was a fair enough name. Ann Arbor is known for it’s football stadium and at least Schembechler has some story behind it. What does skyline have to do with anything, and everyone knows it’s going to end up being known as sky high.
posted by Anonymous on April 4th, 2007 at 9:28 pm
Personally, I think it’s a much better name than the others. Sure, it’s cliche, and it’s lame, but at least people can pronounce it.

Although, as everyone knows, Community is always gonna be the best school out there
posted by Anonymous on May 10th, 2007 at 4:23 pm
eek, that’s a hideous smilie.
posted by Anonymous on May 10th, 2007 at 4:23 pm
Forget eponyms when naming the school. Lousma, Schembeckler, et al. aren’t my heroes and they shouldn’t be anyone else’s either. Isn’t this high school on the north end of Ann Arbor? North Ann Arbor High School sounds accurate and descriptive to me.
posted by John R on August 14th, 2007 at 7:45 pm
foster high, anyone?
posted by peter honeyman on August 14th, 2007 at 8:37 pm
Excuse me! I have family in Ann Arbor and it’s a fine place with great people and a great education. If you feel pitiful enough that you have to put down a great community thats your problem. Just don’t go wasting other peoples time expressing your opinion because they dont want to hear it.
posted by Audrey S on February 7th, 2008 at 5:59 pm

New High School Name Provokes Political Posturing

37 Responses to “New High School Name Provokes Political Posturing”

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