LaxTV Forums | A Forum About The MCLA

Okay-I've got some questions that I need some some folk from the wine country (or otherwise knowledgable individuals)-two questions: 1) why was SSU named the Cossacks (the historical story-does it have anything to do with the Russian River?) and why are they now the Seawolves (historical again-I heard Jack London has something to do with Noma-is this true?). 2) Why did SSU rip the lgos off their ignitor gloves a couple of years ago? Did that have anything to do with the politics about the name change of the mascot around that time?

Certain SSU students were offended by the cossack in that the cossacks pillaged thru many villages in certain countries and people believed it to be an anti semitic mascot... I wasnt offended by the mascot personally, but i guess enough people were offended to sign a petition to get it changed... as far as seawolves go, I nor any one i talk to did not vote for that mascot during the school wide vote to change the name... I know jack london wrote a book titled the SEAWOLF, but the seawolves were also the name of the NAZI U-boats during WWI so I dont know what the eal is... as for your second question, we did not rip our logo off of our ignitor gloves. It was the STX logo not ours and we kept them the way they were given to us.

thanks-but I guess I'm still confused-The whole Cossack thing, is the name random? Were there Russian immigrants in the area? Did a Russian start the school or the school creators just thought it was a scnazzy name?

The Russians established some outpost colonies in California in the 1500/1600's until Spain firmed up their hold on the state with the missions system. They were trappers who came south from Alaska.
Around Sonoma you have the Russian River, towns like Sebastopol etc. There's quite a lot of Russian names around.
This link tells you a little more
http://www.missionscalifornia.com/stories/russians.htm

thanks crick!

Since this is a current Sonoma thread, can anyone state what the possibilities might be of Sonoma going DII? What is thier current compliance situation? Could a program be funded? Is there interest within intercoll. athletics to move to the DII level? It seems like such a natural, and with NDNU in the backyard - does that make any difference? I know that in the NDNU situation, the president of the university is an Amherst grad and he pretty much just made it happen. But the dynamics at SSU are totally different. I'm very curious about this as a possibility.