In an effort to make their school something it's not, Southwest Missouri State successfully lobbied to have their school name changed to 'Missouri State'. Their president commented about how the name change would make them big time. Those of us with a sense of history understood that school names mean something. Changing SMS to Missouri State was an attempt to artificially boost the school's prominence at the expense of the University of Missouri.

It didn't take long before ESPN, CBS and other national networks began referring to Missouri State as 'Mizzou State'. Mizzou is a trademarked name that is unique to the University of Missouri. It is not short for 'Missouri', it is associated only with the Columbia campus. Ironically, this is happening on Mike Alden's watch. He has made it a pet project to market 'Mizzou' everywhere, naming the arena 'Mizzou Arena', removing 'Missouri' from uniforms in favor of 'Mizzou', etc. If this isn't dealt with swiftly by the University of Missouri, it will work its way into the language and Mizzou will lose this distinguishing label. I'm not real fond of Alden's Mizzou campaign as noted below, but I don't want that college down south to take it, either. I'm not blaming them, but if they are silent on this matter, then they are parties to identity theft.