Finally, Rutgers is picking on someone its own size; or, what colleges did YOUR high school rip off?

Buried in the silly news of Big Ten Media Days were two Rutgers Scarlet Knights-related items that we’re happy to re-dredge up and laugh at:

1. Rutgers announced a partnership with SHI International which would rename High Point Solutions Highpoint.com Stadium as SHI Stadium.
2. Rutgers gave Ruston High School in Ruston, Louisiana, notice that its use of the “cherry R” violated copyright and that it would have to phase the old logo out.

And, wouldn’t you know it, we’ve got thoughts...

On the Stadium

Ray Ransom: In all seriousness, our AD (Pat Hobbs) turned a 1-11 season into 3x revenue on naming rights, so he’s basically awesome. The name is...THE SHIT.

ZuzuRU: I really like it lol. People obviously turned it into the whole shit thing, but it sounds way cooler than highpoint. com stadium.

Even calling it “Shy Stadium” or “Shee Stadium” as opposed to the “Ess-H-eye Stadium” sounds cooler.

Thumpasaurus: SHItown’s Big Ten team!

What does SHI do?

IT, as it turns out.

SHI IT.

Ray: Yeah, I mean that’s some pretty bad branding for the company itself. Or is it like...a UA quirk? People see that and immediately are like “lol shit” and it sticks with them and drives down their acquisition costs?

Are we the fools and they’re the geniuses?

Thump: What that means is...any picks thrown there will be SHInts

Anyway, what are we thinking? the shitiseum? the shittodrome? the shittorium? the stade-de-merde?

Ray: Shitternational Stadium is my pick.

Thump: Daytona Shitternational Speedway. Shittergalactic Planetary Planetary Shittergalactic.

beezer07: I assume it’s SUPPOSED to be Shit Stadium. But as with Rutger the team/school, you start losing letters when you’re embarrassingly bad.

Thump: The Shitiron!!!

Andrew K: So when going to rutgre home games from now on, the nomenclature is “heading to the Shitter.” Got it.

At this point, Zu quoted some word salad about “Reality is they partnered with a local company worth $10 billion and is said to be “the largest minority and woman-owned business enterprise in the country’’ that RU believes to be a strong partner in other ventures as well.” We have no idea what that means, and beez—a lawyer, mind you—started complaining about that statement’s wording. He would’ve buried it in a 4-page footnote, we assume. So go ahead and vote on what the nickname for SHI Stadium will be:

On the Logo

87townie: Rutgers is finally punching in its own weight class!

Andrew K: Also, really? Don’t you want as many people as possible to see your logo?

What if some 4* from that school just really digs the logo and ends up considering rutgre because of it?

Jesse Collins: Isn’t this pretty normal for schools? I feel like Wisconsin had had this happen a lot with it’s ugly W.

Townie: I know there are a million Michigan helmet knockoffs out there.

Dead Read: Yes, it is. winged helments are everywhere. lots of catholic high schools mimic notre dame, etc. Some nebby fans think wiscy copied them. I don’t know about that, and I do not care.

Also, I mean, Iowa copied the Pittsburgh Steelers. My high school sort of did, too.

Creighton M: Hayden Fry got permission from the Steelers to do that

Andrew K: Right, the plagiarism was authorized.

Dead Read: If Rutgers wants to defend its intellectual property, have at it. I guess the outrage is so large because the stakes are so small. The alternative is to roll with it and be flattered, but I guess not.

BTW I haven’t read the article and have no intention to [ed. note: that’s fine, it’s Saturday Tradition]. I feel like I’ve wasted my time writing ten unpunctuated sentences about it.

Ray: lol get fucked townies IP is a thing

I know you guys usually don’t worry about someone copying your cousin/uncle’s tractor. But here in civilization we worry about the big picture stuff.

Andrew K: rutgre’s IP is worth cents. Dozens of cents. That they simply can’t let go. And so yes, get into this slapfight with a high school.

Ray: Listen jebediah—If you don’t defend your IP when you are made aware of it via official channels, you lose precedent in future instances. It’s not like making the beast with two backs with your cousin. You gotta be all in.

That didn’t make any sense and I apologize to any innocent bystanders.

AK: Right, I’m sure the University of Michigan, which makes more from merch in a year than rutgre has in its entire existence, doesn’t know how to defend their IP.

Ray: Oh they do, but nobody cares about a has-been school in the middle of nowhere.

ZuzuRU: It’s not like Rutgers sued them

At the very least the school could have changed the damn colors. My school had the WVU logo (Wallkill Valley), but we were black, white, and silver. The Ruston unis literally look like Rutgers uniforms. Like they intercepted a shipment of out helmets or something.

Would be far less blatant ripping off if it was like a blue or green R:

So what say you, reader? Plagiarism or harmless logo-borrowing?

Zuzu’s comments, though, did prompt some other discussion among the monkeys-at-a-typewriter setup that is Off Slackle Empire:

Which colleges did your high school rip off?

MNW: Mine, for example, used the old Habsburg Sparty logo until the mid-aughts, when they went to a stoic, chiseled Sparty face before switching to the recent Simple Sparty helmet logo. When I wear my old gray coaching polo or pullover with the red Spartan logo, I STILL get asked if I’m a Michigan State fan, and I resent them for it.

Also I know that Hawkeye Elvis’s kids’ school uses Go U Northwestern for a fight song, and he hates it.

ZuzuRU: So my school, whose initials were WV, used West Virginia’s linked WV logo. The main letter color was silver with a black and white outline. We also used On Wisconsin as our fight song, my first true exposure to the world of college athletics. I have a soft spot for the Badgers because of this.

Boilerman31: The closest my high school ever got to copying was using the melody of ‘Go U Northwestern’ for its fight song (with a sweet ass coda, get fucked with your single note hook, Mildcats). Other than that, it was either a large Block H or an interlocked ‘HN’.

Our football team did use the Minnesota Vikings horns on their helmets, so I guess there’s that.

Creighton M: Our uniforms and logo were pretty original, but our fight song was just Minnesota Rouser.

87townie: Nobody that I can think of...we were maroon and fucking gray. Ugly ass unis.

Candystripes: My high school’s fight song is set to Illinois Loyalty. Our jerseys are vaguely Purdue-esque, which makes sense when you realize a) our colors are very very similar, and 2) West Lafayette is a 30-40 minute drive away.

DJ: Cavaliers. Used the ECU mascot but were blue and gold.

Andrew K: No one, actually. Went to an arts and sciences magnet school, so one of the more artistically skilled students designed the school’s logo, and they let us vote for the colors and mascot. We went with navy and burgundy, and the Dragons.

We also didn’t have enough kids to field a football team. [ed. note: NERRRRRRRRRRD]

beez: We used On Wisconsin, which I later learned is what like every high school team uses. We changed Wisconsin to Memorial though.

MNW: That’s because it’s a simple-ass song for simpletons, and is played by a band that does an action (and makes a sound) resembling shitting yourself for two minutes straight.

Jesse Collins: Arlington, Nebraska, home of the Arlington Eagles and very much a stolen Philadelphia Eagles logo. We were Maroon and Yellow so it was almost a little different, but yeah, real stolen. We also used On Wisconsin as our fight song.

Thump: My high school had what I thought was an original husky logo until a few years after I graduated and they went to the new Northern Illinois style circle husky.

The Naperville North fight song was exactly the same as Fight For Iowa, right down to the “fight fight fight for Naperville” line from the Iowa song. Naperville to Iowa pipeline was always strong.

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Thoughts on Rutgers picking on a high school? Playing in Stade-de-Merde? Did your school rip off the Michigan winged helmet, and if so, how nauseated are you by it in retrospect? Weigh in in the comments!