At 105 years and counting, it's easily the longest-running name of Cleveland's major professional sports teams.
For many Native American groups, however, the Cleveland Indians' name and the Chief Wahoo logo the organization phased out after the 2018 season have been synonymous with inaccurate and harmful portrayals of a group of people with poverty, unemployment and suicide rates that are well above the national averages.
"We are not cartoon characters. We are not a legend. We are your neighbors, your co-workers, your students, your teachers, your friends, your health care workers," the Lake Erie Native American Council (LENAC) said in a Facebook post after the Indians announced on Dec. 14 that they will change a name the organization has had since 1915.
Cynthia Connolly, an executive board member of LENAC, called the announcement "one of the most significant moments for our community here in Cleveland" — the result, she said, of a "six-decade fight" to convince the Indians to change their name and no longer use the Chief Wahoo logo.
The change, though, won't be immediate.
Cleveland's baseball team will continue using the Indians moniker for at least the 2021 season, as the organization embarks on what it termed a "multi-phase process" of selecting a new name and logo, developing a new brand and uniforms, and securing the necessary trademarks.
For some, the switch, which the Indians first acknowledged was a possibility in July, should have already happened, and further delays only add to the distrust.
"What I've heard in the past is we understand Wahoo is offensive and causes harm, but we're still going to use it," said Sundance, the executive director of the Cleveland American Indian Movement who goes by one name. "At some point, that was phased out. Now what I'm hearing is we understand the use of Indians as a team name causes harm, but we're still going to use it. To me, that is not making progress. That is a circling pattern, and I prefer to make progress."
Connolly, a Policy Matters development director who is a citizen of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians, does see progress.
LENAC is part of the Cleveland Indigenous Coalition, which with the National Congress of American Indians was part of what the Indians have described as a "listening-and-learning process" that also included conversations with corporate partners, researchers, fans, civic leaders and team employees.
Connolly said the Indians "genuinely" listened to each of the four organizations that are part of the Cleveland Indigenous Coalition, and what the baseball club is doing "should serve as the blueprint for other professional and collegiate teams and the nearly 200 schools in Ohio that still have Native American mascots."
The work, she stressed, is far from done.
"We don't plan on sitting on our rears," Connolly said. "This is very important work that needs to happen, and we're very committed to seeing it through."
The Indians have said they will "help support and raise awareness about the Native American community and other underrepresented populations," as well as donate profits from the sales of Chief Wahoo merchandise to Native American organizations and causes.
The Indians' initial statement on a possible change, when the club said it would "determine the best path forward with regard to our team name," was on July 3.
Taking five-plus months to determine a change was necessary falls in line with the "organization's corporate culture, which is careful, slow, patient, methodical," said Thom Fladung, managing partner of Hennes Communications, a Cleveland firm that specializes in crisis communications.
Indians owner Paul Dolan told The Associated Press that the club didn't "want to be the Cleveland Baseball Team or some other interim name."
Instead, the Tribe is "going to take the time we need to do it right," Dolan said.
The Indians' deliberate approach has provided a window for applicants to attempt to secure trademarks for names that have been mentioned as possible replacements.
Within two weeks of the Tribe's July announcement that it was pondering a name change, other parties, according to searches on the United States Patent and Trademark Office's website, applied for trademarks to the Spiders, Guardians and Buckeyes. There were also July filings for the Cleveland Baseball Team and Cleveland Baseball Club.
"Squatters," as they're called, could be sitting on website domains or trademarks for any name the Indians are considering as a replacement.
But they're more of an annoyance than a serious impediment to change, said Marsha Gentner, senior counsel in the Intellectual Property Group at Dykema, a Detroit-based law firm with 13 offices in the U.S.
"People can be clever, but at the end of the day, it's probably just a nuisance," Gentner said.
The reason is trademark applicants "have to have actual bona fide use in commerce before a registration will issue," Gentner said.
The Indians, should they want to pursue a name that has an existing trademark application, could "negotiate with the applicant for an assignment of all rights" or file an opposition with the USPTO's Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, said Mark Avsec, a partner and vice chair of the Innovations, Information Technology and Intellectual Property Group at Benesch of Cleveland.
Names that have been mentioned as replacements could have so many trademark applications, Gentner said, that a sports team could determine that it's easier to "pay my lawyer rather than pay off all these people."
Arlen Love of Vancouver, Wash., filed an application for a Cleveland Spiders trademark on July 7. The huge Cleveland sports fan said he has sold merchandise in the past and decided to jump at the chance to trademark the Spiders.
Love has a small selection of Spiders merchandise on Teespring, an e-commerce platform on which people can create and sell custom apparel.
He says he's not a trademark squatter — "just a diehard fan of Cleveland sports that thought that it's time for the Spiders to creep back into our lives, either as a sports team name or just a lowly jersey maker."
The Indians could alleviate potential headaches by going a different route and choosing a name that hasn't been part of the public's speculation.
"Instead of going for all of these things that people have talked about before in the press, your option is to go in a completely different direction. Get something that hasn't received any press, clear everything, get it filed and then the day you file make your announcement," Gentner said. "Then you've done it right and it's easier to do."
Even if the Indians, as Avsec of Benesch expects, keep serious name candidates "close to the vest," that's just one element of a complex process for which there isn't a set timeline.
The lack of immediacy frustrates some, but LENAC's Connolly said the Indians changing their name marks the high point of a battle that's more than twice as old as many of the team's players.
It's the culmination, she said, "of generations of grassroots advocacy and activism by indigenous leadership."
December 20, 2020 at 04:00PM
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Complex process of Indians' name change is culmination of 'generations' of work by Native American groups - Crain's Cleveland Business
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