Lions Roar ‘Enough’ About Being Called ‘Marymount’ on TV

What’s in a name? Some touchy feelings if the name is Loyola Marymount.

The Lions’ basketball team has been on television three times this season--with several more appearances to go--and has been featured in a Sports Illustrated article.

But all the recent attention has provided one headache: how to convince the national media to call the school what it wants to be called.

For most of the century the school was merely Loyola of Los Angeles. But in 1973 all-male Loyola merged with all-women’s Marymount College to form the somewhat unwieldy Loyola Marymount and complicate the matter of publicity.

The school prefers to be referred to by its full name, or at least by its initials, LMU. The single name Loyola is grudgingly accepted in second reference. The one thing not to call the school is Marymount . Even more infuriating is Loyola of Marymount .

But in recent telecasts, the Lions have been referred to regularly as Marymount--WGN-TV in Chicago even ran halftime totals as “Marymount Statistics” in last week’s DePaul telecast (perhaps to prevent viewers from confusing the school with Chicago’s Loyola University)--and school publicists have been trying to figure out ways to persuade reporters and, especially, broadcasters to use the school’s preferred names.

In a recent press release, Loyola sports publicist Barry Zepel noted: “The correct and official name of the school is Loyola Marymount University with no hyphen. Never refer to the school in second reference as Marymount. . . . Some media in recent years have wrongly called the institution Loyola of Marymount, but there is no such city or area.”

Loyola’s conference took a more whimsical approach in pleading for correct usage. West Coast Athletic Conference publicist Don Ott pointed out, “What would Dame be without its Notre or Forest without its Wake. What Rock would it be without Slippery or Little? Never leave your Dickinson without a Fairleigh and avoid a Marymount without a Loyola.”

If anyone needed convincing that Loyola guard Bo Kimble was hurting, his doughnut against DePaul last week had to be final proof. Kimble, who has been playing on a sore knee that has defied diagnosis, had never been shut out in a Loyola uniform before, possibly never before in his career.

After playing sparingly in the Lions’ first two games, Kimble sat out several weeks trying to strengthen the joint. But he was even less effective when he returned. As a result, the 6-foot-5 junior who averaged 22 points last season had arthroscopic surgery on the right knee Thursday, and the amount of time he will be out will depend on what was found.

One early diagnosis: Kimble certainly will not be ready for the Lions’ West Coast Athletic Conference openers Jan. 11 and 12, and the team has had a visible hole in the offense without him, despite its 112-point average.

“The absence of Bo is stretching me,” Coach Paul Westhead said after Wednesday’s game against Marist. We don’t really have another (shooting guard). Tonight we used (freshman) Terrell Lowery and he seemed to like it.”

Westhead said it was too early to gauge the team’s attitude or whether someone would step forward in the wake of Kimble’s loss. “The guys recognized his inability to play weeks ago,” he said. “The next three or four games we’ll see the results. One thing I learned about Bo--I didn’t know how tough he was till he kept trying to hang in and play with a bad leg.”

Toro Tidbits: Anthony Blackmon’s 17 rebounds in 2 games last week and 12 Wednesday night lifted him into second place on the Toro career list with 680, leaving him 167 behind James Shaw’s school record. Blackmon’s pace of 9.8 per game leads the California Collegiate Athletic Assn. and would pass Shaw if maintained. Blackmon’s 19.6-point average ranks second in the CCAA. . . . Junior transfer Khyra Anderson has grabbed 44 rebounds in her last 3 games to improve her CCAA lead in rebounding to 12.1 per game. She also leads in blocked shots with 15. . . . Sophomore Devon Akita has taken over the team scoring lead at 9.8 points per game, just ahead of Anderson’s 9.5.

Joey Johnson, the jumping jack out of Banning High School who became celebrated nationally for his monumental leaps in junior college, is grounded these days and will have to hustle to be eligible to play in his second season at Arizona State next year.

Johnson--6-foot-3 youngest brother of Celtics star Dennis Johnson--had a standing jump of 4 feet that gained him national mention as a phenom at Southern Idaho College. He is redshirting this season at Arizona State and was forced to withdraw from classes recently because of a bout with mononucleosis.

That means Johnson gained no credits from fall semester classes. He will have to complete 24 credits by the end of summer sessions to be eligible next fall.

College Notes

Study in opposites: Loyola’s basketball team is averaging 112.4 points and allowing 112. Defense-minded conference rival St. Mary’s, off to its best start in decades at 9-1, is averaging 83 points and allowing 57 . . . Loyola has three of the top five scorers in the West Coast Athletic Conference. St. Mary’s has nobody averaging more than 14 points, but all five starters are scoring in double figures. . . . Gonzaga, off to a 6-3 start, is shooting 57% from the field and 49% from 3-point range (34 of 69). The Bulldogs ranked in the top 20 in shooting percentage last season when they hit 52%. In four games before this weekend’s Cowboy Shootout at Wyoming, the Zags shot 64%, including a school-record 70% last week against Warner Pacific. Gonzaga’s opponents are shooting 46% . . . By comparison, Loyola is shooting 47.5% and opponents are shooting nearly 55%. However, the Lions take nearly 90 shots per game to the opposition’s 80 and are outscoring foes from 3-point range, 75-28.