Names change, for better — or worse

I’m sure you’ve heard the University of Connecticut and the Burton family of Greenwich are friends once more. The UConn football operation will keep the family’s $3 million donation and the Burton Family Football Center will keep its name.You’ll recall Robert Burton, the family patriarch, had angrily sought a refund because he was unhappy with the selection of the new UConn football coach, a choice made without the proper input, as he saw it, from the generous Robert Burton. We don’t know what the incoming UConn president and the nervous athletic director said to the patriarch to make up, but I’m sure it was nice. At any rate, the team will continue to do what it does in the elaborate facility and play its home games at Rentschler Field in East Hartford, a considerable distance from the campus and the Burton Family Football Center but convenient for fans who don’t attend the college. There is no danger Rentschler Field will undergo a name change in the foreseeable future as it was properly named for the long deceased Frederick Rentschler. He was the founder of United Aircraft, an ancestor of United Technologies, which gave UConn the land in East Hartford. The basketball teams will continue to play at arenas named for a donor, Gampel Pavilion, on the campus, and at the XL Center in Hartford, which is so named, not to honor the Roman number 40, but to promote XL Group, a not terribly well known, 25-year-old insurance conglomerate. This means the University of Connecticut, at least for now, will not be playing home games in arenas or stadiums named for orange juice, dog food, companies with funny names or unsavory reputations.This is, however, not true of away games. Just the other day, the UConn men played the University of Louisville in an arena with the tackiest name around, the KFC Yum! Center, complete with the !. When I was growing up, ball parks honored people named Ebbets, Crosley, Griffith, Shibe, Comiskey, or they had names that reflected the teams, Braves Field, Yankee Stadium or even their neighborhoods, as in Fenway Park. But just a bit of research reveals there have always been commercial motives behind some name selections. Fenway Park is in the Fenway neighborhood, but its naming in 1912 started with a Red Sox owner who thought the name would be a plus for his Fenway Realty Co. Wrigley Field was named in 1926 for the Chicago Cubs owner, but Philip Wrigley picked the name to promote his chewing gum. Since naming rights are granted for as little as three years or as many as 20, there can be some confusion when names change faster than team rosters. The TD Garden in Boston has had about 35 names since it was built as the Shawmut Center in 1993. It was Fleet Center until owner Fleet Bank was gobbled up by the Bank of America and attained its record number of names when the arena’s owner bought the naming rights back from Bank of America. The arena couldn’t find a long-term name renter, so it auctioned daily naming rights on e-Bay for about $3,000 a day. This gave the center a different name every day for about a month, and the owners rejected only one, an attempt to name the arena the Derek Jeter Center. They did, however, allow the place to be called Yankees Suck Center for two days in 2005. The proceeds of the auction, more than $150,000, went to charities. Some names turn out to be embarrassing for more than a day or two and have to be changed. The Houston Astros played in a park named for the notorious Enron Corporation until it ceased to exist in that unseemly financial scandal in 2002. But the worst naming embarrassment may have involved a name honoring a contributor. UConn basketball teams play Villanova in a campus arena known simply as The Pavilion, but it was the du Pont Pavilion until the man it was named for, John du Pont of the Delaware duPonts, was convicted of murder in 1996. I guess there is something to be said for short-term, renewable naming arrangements. Dick Ahles is a retired journalist from Simsbury. E-mail him at dahles@hotmail.com.