Team Names

FedEx Corp. reduced its multimillion-dollar role in efforts to attract the NBA to Memphis, Tenn., when the league rejected "Express" as a team name. FedEx withdrew its offer to buy team naming rights "unless the NBA would like to reopen the discussion," company spokeswoman Shirley Clark said yesterday. The Memphis-based company discussed the possibility of Memphis Express as a team name in its approximately $100 million offer. FedEx still intends to seek naming rights to a new arena if the league grants permission for the Vancouver Grizzlies to relocate to Memphis.

Derogatory terms for ethnic groups - imagine your own list of them here - deeply insult the ethnic groups they target. They represent a time and mentality that stressed white supremacy, promoted segregation and oppression, and even the suggestion that nationality should predetermine the character of a human being. This being said, why is the Native American, the symbol we use to represent our entire school, referred to as a redskin? One explanation might be the fact that people don't recognize redskin as an ethnic slur.

It is no secret that the civil rights establishment has become a parody of what was once a courageous battle for racial dignity and fairness. There was a time when those who claimed to fight against prejudice confronted genuinely terrible injustice: segregated public schools, the bombing of black churches, flouting of the 15th Amendment. No more. "Civil rights" leaders today are typically shakedown artists like Jesse Jackson or racial inciters like Al Sharpton. The old struggle to cleanse the law of distinctions based on color has given way to demands for permanent racial preferences.

Call this team the Philadelphia Charge. And plan to go see it play at Villanova Stadium. Just don't ask who's going to be the coach (it's a secret), or who the players will be on the complete roster. So far, there are only five. There still is a lot of work to do before Philadelphia's first professional women's soccer team takes the field in April. But don't worry about the unfinished details. The Women's United Soccer Association, scheduled to begin play in April, is getting it all together.

You need strength, athleticism and courage to compete for a spot on the U.S. Olympic women's gymnastics team. This year, you also needed waterproof mascara. The top women competed in the national championships last month, and they competed in the Olympic trials on Friday and yesterday. While those results were used as a guideline, the final roster of the team was picked by a committee headed by U.S. gymnastics guru Bela Karolyi. When the winners and losers were announced last night, there were tears of joy, tears of sorrow, and, well, just tears of relief that the whole long process had finally ended.

The team that will draw up a plan for improving student performance in the troubled Chester Upland School District has been named by the district's Board of Control under the state's new Education Empowerment Act. The names were released yesterday by Thomas E. Persing, chairman of the Board of Control. The district has been run by a fiscal Board of Control since it was declared financially distressed in 1994. That board was reappointed this month as the Education Empowerment Act Board of Control.

The Pennsylvania Department of Education has named the state advisory team to help the Chester Upland School District devise a plan to improve student performance under the state Education Empowerment Act. The act, which took effect July 1, gives 11 low-performing school districts, including Chester Upland, broad new powers, including the ability to create charter and independent schools, hire private firms to run schools, fire teachers and...

The latest version of the NHL under commissioner Gary Bettman will take shape today when the league conducts an expansion draft to fill the rosters of the Columbus Blue Jackets and the Minnesota Wild. Except for the two recent expansion teams, the Atlanta Thrashers and the Nashville Predators, who will not participate, all NHL clubs will lose two players in the draft. The Blue Jackets and the Wild will select three goalies in the first round, eight defensemen in the second round, 13 forwards in the third round, and two players from any position in the fourth round.

Camden's minor-league baseball franchise went to the city's schoolchildren last week for help in choosing a name for the new team. Ballots distributed to about 16,000 students in kindergarten through eighth grade at the city's public and parochial schools offered seven names - Batts, Cowfish, Craze, Crickets, Rivermen, Riversharks and WaterDogs - and a blank for write-in nominations. If an informal exit poll of students at Coopers Poynt Elementary School in North Camden was any indication, Riversharks looked like the runaway favorite.

The owner of Camden's minor-league baseball franchise has chosen an executive involved in the start-up of the Atlantic League's Bridgeport, Conn., team to launch operations here. One of the first jobs that John J. Brandt Jr., 33, has taken on as general manager for Camden Baseball LLC is running a contest for Camden schoolchildren to choose the name of the team, which is slated to start play next year. The announcement of Brandt's appointment by team owner Stephen R. Shilling comes as workers are preparing ground on the Delaware River waterfront for a $17.5 million, 6,000-seat stadium, which will be owned by Rutgers University and used by the minor-league franchise and the school.