SO WHAT’S IN A NAME? A RHINO BY ANY OTHER NAME STILL HAS A PRETTY BIG HORN!

Editorial by: Jared Neumeier

Posted: March 21, 2007

RMFL – Well the latest in a round of musical names, has just been announced:

Official Press release from the Madison Lionz:

The Madison Lionz are proud to announce that they will now be known as the Eastern Idaho Lionz due to the expansion of communities wanting to be involved and the additional home field locations. We will be spliting the season between Sugar-Salem and North Fremont High School Fields. Please come and join us for a free community event to be held on Saturday, March 31, at the Rexburg Nature Park. The Lionz will be scrimmaging the Morgan Mauraders. There will also be free hotdogs served.
Come and see what Lionz Football is all about.

The “Madison Lionz” are no longer the Madison Lionz… from here forward they shall be known as “Eastern Idaho Lionz”.

But this changing name game did not start with the Lionz… nor is it likely to end with them either… The whole “what shall we call ourselves THIS season” game has been going on since the beginning of the RMFL.

There are only 4 RMFL teams around today that have been around for more than a season that have NEVER changed their names (Utah Wolverines, Glacier Knights, Morgan Marauders and Idaho Falls Mustangs), and 3 of those teams haven’t been around as long as the Lionz…yet.

Only the Idaho Falls Mustangs have retained their original name for more than 5 seasons. In fact, this will be their 11^th season as the Idaho Falls Mustangs and they… are the exception; definitely NOT the rule.

To look at the earliest of franchise name changing, one can look as far back as the first league season. In that 1997 season, there were only 4 teams in the Rocky Mountain Football League. Between the first season and the start of the 1998 season, ½ of those teams chose to change their names. Interestingly, the 2 weakest teams of that first year… perhaps trying to change up their luck.

The 1997 Pocatello-Blackfoot Dragons changed to “Portneuf Valley Dragnos” for their second season and then changed again to the Blackfoot Dragons in 1999… and then… merged with a few remaining members of the Rocky Mountain Bulls and changed to the “Rocky Mountain Dragons” in 2000. Four seasons, four different names. In 2001, they became the Fort Hall Cobras… and eventually took that name to their grave, folding after two seasons as the Cobras in 2002, but not until they endured the biggest loss in RMFL history, a 96-0 loss to the Madison Lionz in 2002.

The other original franchise, the “Pocatello Fighting Kangaroos”, changed to the “Pocatello Bandits” for 1998… and then folded entirely.

In 1998, the RMFL saw the Mini-Cassia Bulldawgs enter the scene. They kept “Mini-Cassia” for 6 seasons before changing to “Magic Valley” in 2004, ostensibly to be “better representative of the area their players came from.

Today’s “Boise Speed” came into the league in 2000 as the “Boise Cardinals”. They changed from Cardinals to Roughriders after season one. They played under the Roughrider name for 6 seasons before changing to Speed in honor of a major sponsor they picked up this past off-season. The change from Cardinals to Roughriders, however, was pretty understandable. The “Cardinal” name was selected by their original owner, who left them high and dry early in the 2000 season. The name represented a fresh start.

1999’s championship game runner-up, the Treasure Valley Cowboys, who were the first RMFL team with a “mega-roster”, often carrying well over 50 players, lost many of those players to the expansion (Boise) Cardinals the next season. After suffering a serious setback in 2000, the “Cowboys” folded for 2001, before being resurrected by their storied tailback, Manzo Hodge, for two more seasons from 2002 to 2003 as the “Treasure Valley Panthers”.

Although Pocatello’s original franchise, the Rocky Mountain Bulls effectively folded after the 1999 season, when their team founder and linebacker, Matt Culbertson moved away, the creation of the Pocatello Silverbacks in 2001 was a team not like those early Bulls. It was, in fact, the expansion Silverbacks of 2001 that helped save the Rocky Mountain Football League from extinction that season. The Gate City’s franchise remained the Pocatello Silverbacks for three seasons, 2001-2003 until the Snake River Rebels, a team from a hop, skip and a jump north of Pocatello folded after losing the 2003 Championship game to the Idaho Falls Mustangs.

In order to help the incoming Rebels feel like everyone was on equal status on the team, the leadership from both groups felt that a new name had to be created for the “merged” franchise and the team settled on the ”Predators” to begin the 2004 season. The name they still have today.

In Montana, the Great Falls Gladiators were originally called the Great Falls Rangers, however there have been several management changes since then. The Helena Titans were originally the “Helena Knights” before new ownership decided to change the name to the “Tri-City Titans”. When both players and coaches became disgruntled with a number of “dropped balls” and broken promises from that management, the Players and coaches took the team over and changed the teams’ moniker to what it is today, the Helena Titans.

Of course, everyone is well aware of the off-season change in Missoula from “Raptors” to “Phoenix and the Blaze are a little young to be changing their name… or are they? Only the Glacier Knights seem to have passed the test of time as far as keeping a name in Montana, The Knights have been the Knights now for 4 seasons.

In Utah, aside from what now seems an annual team name change by the Rockets/Devil Dogs etc., the Utah tradition seems to be not to recognize a city or area affiliation at all.

The Utah Wolverines and the Utah Heat both have chosen names that represent the entire state and not just the playing area of their players…

But, the biggest fad, of course, is no area affiliation at all.

Utah’s current oldest franchise, and our 3-time league champion, the Rhino-Raiders, seem to have started this trend.

The Rhino-Raiders were created in 1999. In their inaugural season they were known simply as the “South Ogden Raiders”, even donning silver and black jerseys… (which, I personally wish they’d go back to). Between 1999 and 2000, however, apparently the changing of the name… and colors, seemed to work. The “Raiders” added “Rhino” to their name and changed to the Red and white that you see today.

They haven’t lost a league game since.

When the UFL merged into the Rocky Mountain Football League before the 2004 season, the Rhino-Raiders Owner/GM, Dave Stireman, elected to drop the “South Ogden” and simply call themselves “Rhino-Raiders”. No “Utah”, no “Ogden”, not even “Northern Utah”… JUST Rhino-Raiders. They became the first RMFL franchise to shun ANY area designation… but they sure weren’t the last.

In 2005, Rex Stacy and the Davis Vipers dropped “Davis” from their team name; becoming simply the “Vipers”.

And in 2006, the Kamas Valley Muddogs, who were “evicted” from Kamas Valley, understandably dropped the “Kamas Valley” and became… well, the “Muddogs”.

The trend seems to work as both the “Muddogs” and “Rhino-Raiders” both won championships in 2006.

If the Vipers win the AA this year and the Muddogs and Rhino-Raiders are in the AAA Championship this season, I’m fully expecting to get a call immediately from the Idaho Falls Mustangs, letting me know they will be henceforth known as: “the team formerly known as the Idaho Falls Mustangs…:”

So, as we all try to get used to calling the Lionz, the “Eastern Idaho Lionz”, and try to figure out which team we are talking about when we say “Utah”, and outsiders to the league try to just guess where the Vipers, Muddogs and Rhinos hail from; it is good to know that trying to come up with a team name that not only “inspires”, but also represents is not as easy… or as consistent as we might think.

Bottom line:

No matter if your team is called the “Lions”, “Tigers” or “Bears” (Oh my!), it’s the name of the players on the team, not really the name of the team on the players that wins championships.