Otterblog

A week or so back, we reported on a naming study done for the city of Winston-Salem that said that the city could make a lot of money if it sold naming rights for the coliseum. At this point, it’s a non-starter. Scott Sexton also wrote a column about it.

The Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum has been a controversial name since the very beginning, and the Journal has often been the focus of the controversy. A caller today screamed at me for the way we refer to it in the paper, Joel Coliseum (Most other media and WFU also refer to it like this). The calmer interpretation of what he was saying is that by removing the V and the M part of the name, we are not honoring the other men and women who served and died for this country.

I disagree. First, the journalistic argument on the name we use. It’s one of clarity and it’s how most people refer to the coliseum. Occasionally, someone says they saw a concert or a game at LJVM, but it’s almost always just Joel Coliseum or Lawrence Joel. The opposing argument would be that if the newspaper—and all the other media—had called it by its full name from the very beginning, we’d all be doing it. Language adoption rarely works like that. Clarity and simplicity find a way.

Second, the emotional argument. This goes back to the original fight over the name and the decision by the aldermen at the time to elevate one man above the others, while still adding these other parts in a Christmas tree fashion that was sure to cause confusion down the road. Political solutions to emotional issues rarely leave all parties happy. Lawrence Joel is our only Medal of Honor winner from Winston-Salem. He’s also black, and the elevation didn’t sit right with some people at the time and still today. In a sense, the full name honors three groups of people in the military. First, all veterans. Second, those who died in service. Third, Joel himself. Some people are in one category, others in two. Joel, himself, in three.

What I like about calling it Joel Coliseum is that that naming forces you to focus on one person and his bravery and courage. That said, I don’t believe it demeans or excludes other vets or those who died in service. If anything, it personalizes the sacrifice each of these people—even those who don’t have a coliseum named after them—have made.