Oct. 20, 2006

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) -The University of Alaska-Fairbanks is not the state's biggest school, or even its best on the field. But it certainly does a good job of marketing itself.

The school known until now as UAF has declared that its teams will be known as the Alaska Nanooks. That positions the school as the state's dominant campus, much like the Wisconsin Badgers or the Nebraska Cornhuskers.

As the Nanooks headed into a weekend series of hockey games against state rival Alaska-Anchorage, some players at the state's largest school - UAA - weren't too thrilled with the change.

UAA assistant hockey captain Justin Bourne said he was a little bit offended, comparing the move to Minnesota-Mankato pronouncing itself Minnesota instead of the bigger state school in Minneapolis.

"We're the bigger school," Bourne said. "Whatever, we'll deal with it on the ice."

Indeed, UAA is much bigger. Alaska-Anchorage had nearly 15,000 full- and part-time students in 2005, compared to 5,700 at the main UAF campus and 3,000 more at its nearby Tanana Valley campus.

The UAA Seawolves hold a 72-48-9 career mark against the Fairbanks school in hockey. UAA leads the men's basketball rivalry 58-27 and women's basketball 45-29.

And Anchorage is Alaska's No. 1 city, with a population of about 278,000 - more than three times the size of Fairbanks.

Yet the sign scrolling on the Fairbanks civic center Thursday touted this weekend's hockey matchup as "Alaska vs. UAA."

"The goal is to ensure that when college sports fans reference Alaska, they immediately think of the premier program from the flagship campus of the University of Alaska statewide system, located in the best city in Alaska - Fairbanks," said UAF athletic director Forrest Karr.

Karr graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which is known around the country as Wisconsin. The name change has been in the works for years, said Karr, who was appointed interim athletic director in July 2005 and given the job permanently in January.

Reaction from the UAA athletic department has been, well, kind of cool. Athletic director Steve Cobb was forceful in his indifference.

"I can't think of anything I can react to less. They can call themselves anything they want to," Cobb said. "I'm very comfortable that we're the University of Alaska Anchorage, have been and are going to be. I couldn't pretend to know what they're thinking."

Some Alaska-Anchorage students took more of an interest.

"It's really ridiculous. It sounds like a gimmick," said John Wilcox, a senior art major. "Changing their name to Alaska Nanooks undermines the idea that UA is a unified system. It's like they want people to think they are the premier school. If they are Alaska, what does that make us?"

Kate Ripley, spokeswoman for the University of Alaska system, which oversees both schools and is based in Fairbanks, said the change was made without consulting system president Mark Hamilton. Ripley said Hamilton has no plans to intervene.

"This was definitely a campus decision," she said. "It isn't one he was consulted on and it isn't one he's involved with. He knew about it after it was being done."

Karr said UAF team uniforms have not been consistent. Some say "Alaska" and some, including those for the popular hockey team, have had "UAF" emblazoned across the chest.

"It was kind of confusing to people when we had different pictures on the Web site," he said. "We wanted consistency."

Some hockey fans accustomed to shouting "U-A-F" at games have questioned why the school is making the change.

But Karr insists the name change will be an important tool in recruiting and marketing. And he says people who received University of Alaska degrees before there were campuses elsewhere in the state like the simpler designation.

"Those people called in and said, 'Yeah, we should never have called ourselves the University of Alaska-Fairbanks,"' Karr said.