The NCAA has declared that it will begin banning schools from using "hostile" or "abusive" nicknames and logos during post-season sporting events, in an effort to force some 18 colleges and universities to drop team names such as the Braves and the Indians.

* The NCAA has declared that it will begin banning schools from using "hostile" or "abusive" nicknames and logos during post-season sporting events, in an effort to force some 18 colleges and universities to drop team names such as the Braves and the Indians. Unfortunately, the athletic association didn't bother to look past the views of self-appointed tribal activists, each one a specialist in politically correct grievance-mongering. Instead, the NCAA could have canvassed the opinions of ordinary American Indians. According to a Sports Illustrated poll, more than three-quarters of them don't object to these monikers-and many actually embrace the team names, just as Irish Americans have adopted Notre Dame and its Fighting Irish. In the wake of the NCAA's decision, for instance, the Saginaw Chippewa tribe issued a statement blasting any "outside entity" that sought to disrupt its "rich relationship" with Central Michigan University, whose teams are called the Chippewas. Florida State University, home of the Seminoles, has saved its nickname by threatening legal action against the NCAA. Part of the screwiness of the NCAA's new policy is that it exempts the University of North Carolina at Pembroke-for more than 20 percent of its students are themselves Indians, and eligible to play on teams called the Braves. That nickname, of course, honors martial courage. The NCAA, by contrast, has provided us with a profile in cowardice.