While Notre Dame’s football team battled rival USC on the football field last Saturday, a university attorney took aim at a small Kansas town ravaged by a tornado three years ago.
Chapman, located about 100 miles northwest of Emporia, has a population of about 1,400, which is roughly 12 percent of Notre Dame’s student count. Chapman High School and Notre Dame are linked because the school has had the Fighting Irish nickname since 1967. Chapman’s mascot is the same leprechaun with the curled up fists that Notre Dame uses.
Evidently, Notre Dame officials for more than 40 years didn’t know about Chapman’s mascot. But this summer the Chapman High School principal got a letter from Notre Dame instructing Chapman to change their mascot.
The school can and will keep the Fighting Irish nickname, but they will have to alter the mascot. This will mean money has to be spent on new uniforms and to change the mascot on school facilities, even though they were painted somewhat recently as the new high school opened in January.
The leprechaun is a federally registered trademark, so other school districts are not allowed to use it. A Chapman school district attorney suggested officials not resist Notre Dame’s demands, so the district launched a contest to design a new mascot and logo.
“Chapman is one of many schools that, over the years, have adopted the nickname Fighting Irish and/or used our logo,” said Dennis Brown, Notre Dame vice president of communications. “Notre Dame does not actively seek out such schools, but when a school’s use of our trademarked symbols comes to our attention, we do notify it and ask administrators there to find alternatives.”
In June 2008, a tornado ripped through Chapman, causing massive destruction. The school itself was heavily damaged. Presumably someone at Notre Dame googled Chapman so they weren’t in the dark about what happened.
Having a tornado wipe out much of your town does not make it alright to break the law. But it can be argued that given the struggles of rebuilding from a tornado, Notre Dame could have turned a blind eye. Notre Dame apparently had no idea what the mascot was for 40 years, so what’s another decade of “not knowing”?
To state the obvious: Chapman High School is no financial threat to Notre Dame.
Even if Chapman were selling T-shirts, hats or other merchandise with the leprechaun mascot on it, the money made has to be a pittance compared to dollars that flow into Notre Dame for their officially licensed merchandise.
Several school districts across the country choose their mascot based on college mascots, perhaps as a sign of support or respect. Before trademark infringement was all the rage, some districts may have just copied the mascot because they didn’t know any better.
Chapman technically is in the wrong here and the letter of law says they should have to change how the mascot looks. It’s probably not that big of a deal, but the image of Notre Dame picking on a small Kansas town trying to make it back from a tornado doesn’t sit well. Thankfully, Reading Elementary School is known as the Lions, not the Fighting Irish.
cookatwork (anonymous) says...
While this is a very sad and quite spirit provoking situation.... the school was notified back in 2006 that they would need to alter their use of the trademarked logo... two years BEFORE the tornado. Not taking sides, at all, and I have no affiliation or loyalty to either school - just adding some facts to the story.
October 25, 2011 at 6:07 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )