Here are some past articles that are worth checking out

Sparty?! Bucky?! Meet the new wolverines
BY HUGH McDIARMID JR.
Free Press Staff Writer

Like a boy named Sue, baby wolverines unveiled Thursday by the Detroit Zoo are saddled with a humiliation unbecoming of their breed.

One is named Sparty, as in the fierce-yet-cartoonish, bug-eyed Michigan State University icon.
The other is Bucky, a variation of Buckeye, the Ohio State University team nickname inexplicably inspired by the fruit of a tree.

"I heard about that," University of Michigan assistant athletic director Bruce Madej sputtered in mock outrage Thursday. "Sparty and Bucky? OK. Seems to me if they were worried about wolverines becoming extinct, they wouldn't name them after Spartans and Buckeyes!"

Over in East Lansing, Madej's counterpart smirked: "I think it adds a little class to the rodents," said John Lewandowski, associate athletic director. And in keeping with a bitter rivalry, he twisted the knife: "And I'm surprised you were able find Bruce in the office, since he's usually out golfing. Oh, yeah, it's raining today."

Down south, the flatlanders in Ohio were feeling pretty smug, too: "The more friends we have in Michigan, the better. I know that Bucky, he won't back down from anybody," said Steve Snapp, OSU's associate athletic director.

Now, for those who are transplants from godforsaken Big Ten outposts like Indiana or Wisconsin, U-M's team nickname is the Wolverines -- terrifying carnivores that roam wild throughout the state. (OK, actually, there's only one we know of, and it might have been someone's pet.)

The zoo's new wolverine babies, born in February, are the only surviving litter born to a North American zoo this year, and a first for Detroit.

But the inflammatory names were no mistake, insisted zoo public relations maven Rana Kozouz, who added coyly: "You know, most of the zookeepers are Michigan State graduates."

It was a clue even Barney Fife couldn't miss.

Soon the Free Press was on the phone with senior keeper Cindy Colling, who heads up wolverine care at the zoo. Colling's diploma? Class of '94, Michigan State University College of Natural Sciences!

Colling confessed to naming the little critters with input from her colleagues at the zoo, including "a few others who are Spartans, too. I thought, for a Spartan taking care of the wolverines, what better name than Sparty? It's all meant in good fun, and I hope everybody takes it that way."
In fact, staffers generally decorate the fence surrounding the wolverine exhibit during the week preceding the MSU/U-M football game each fall -- half green and white, the other half maize and blue.

Colling said the baby wolverines' mother, named Aggie, hasn't voiced any objections to the names assigned to her offspring. But then again, she may have her own agenda: She came to Detroit from the zoo in Columbus, Ohio.

Copyright © 2005 Detroit Free Press Inc.