The bear facts: Why are the Memphis Grizzlies ... well, the Grizzlies? | Know Your 901

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Today's column is in response to a question that pops up even now, 22 years after the fact...

Why are the Memphis Grizzlies the Grizzlies?

The Memphis Grizzlies are now in their 23rd season in the Bluff City.

So whatever the fate of the team, the name, apparently, is here to stay.

Yet some fans (or non-fans, maybe) still complain that "Grizzlies" is a name that does not represent Memphis (because grizzly bears are not native to the Mid-South). Or they ask, "Why 'Grizzlies'?"

The Grizzlies relocated to Memphis in 2001, after six seasons in Vancouver, where the team accumulated a dismal (rhymes with abysmal) 101-359 record. (The team's play so far this season also has been, um, grisly.)

For Vancouver, a city roughly 2,423 miles northwest of Memphis in the westernmost province of Canada, the "Grizzlies" moniker was appropriate as well as ferocious.

"The ownership group wanted a name symbolic of Vancouver and the entire province of British Columbia," explains the team's "Behind the Name" page on NBA.com.

"After initially tabbing 'Mounties' as the team’s name, a tribute to Canada’s iconic Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the franchise instead changed the name to 'Grizzlies.' Grizzly bears are indigenous to British Columbia, and are a highly prominent icon both in northwestern native culture and Western Canada as a whole."

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On June 28, 2001, the relocation committee of the NBA Board of Governors unanimously approved the move of the team from Vancouver to Memphis, making the July 3 vote of the full board essentially a formality. "Grizzly Alert!" blared the top-of-the-front-page headline on the June 29 edition of The Commercial Appeal.

Showcasing "a new cast, including first-round draft pick Shane Battier from Duke and trade acquisition Jason Williams from Sacramento," the team played that first season in the Pyramid as the Memphis Grizzlies, "because of the league's lengthy approval process for name changes."

Team owner Michael Heisley (who died in 2014) told the newspaper that "no decisions have been made" for the team name beyond its first season. He said he favored the name "Memphis Express," but said that name was not intended to be a corporate tie-in to FedEx because the NBA does not allow teams to be named for products or companies. (If that had been approved, we would now have the Memphis Express playing in FedExForum.)

Heisley added that he would abide by the advice of "the marketing people," who might want to keep the name. After all, he said, "We're going to be spending a lot of money publicizing the Memphis Express — I mean, Memphis Grizzlies."

After the inaugural season, the team "explored the possibility of changing the team’s name to something that better reflected their new home," according to NBA.com.

The Commercial Appeal got into the act, running opposing columns in the "Sports" section, with Don Wade making the keep-the-name argument, and Geoff Calkins calling for change ("Moniker just doesn't bear up" was the headline).

"Grizzlies is a fine name," Calkins wrote. "For a team from Vancouver or Juneau. But the Memphis Grizzlies? Might as well have the Memphis Mountaineers, the Memphis Beef Ribs, the Memphis Cool Summers. It just doesn't fit."

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More persuasively, he added that the Grizzlies name was associated with a tradition of losing, and a new name might have a "transforming effect," as it did with the Tennessee Titans of the National Football League, a team that kept its old Oilers name for only two seasons after moving from Houston. "As the Oilers, they were terrible," Calkins wrote. "As the Oilers, they didn't draw fans. The first year after changing their name, bam, they were in the Super Bowl."

Wade, meanwhile, argued: "The name does fit because people like it, because it sounds good, because the logo's pretty cool, and call me crazy, but I think it's a good thing that I won't stumble onto a grizzly while running the trails at Shelby Farms."

Of course, "Grizzlies" already had some history in Memphis, being the unofficial but well-liked and oft-used nickname of the Memphis Southmen, the World Football League team that operated here in 1974 and 1975 — a team, originally intended for Canada, that used a roaring grizzly bear as its logo.

Anyway, as you know the Grizzlies name proved to be a keeper. According to NBA.com: "When team management broached the issue with season ticket holders, fans and the business community, Memphis let them know in no uncertain terms that they had grown to embrace the name 'Grizzlies,' despite there being no history of Grizzly bears in west Tennessee.

"We asked our fans if they wanted a new name, and they overwhelmingly told us how much they loved the name 'Grizzlies' and didn’t want to see a change," said President of Business Operations Andy Dolich.

Even so, you sometimes hear a person remark that they like the Grizzlies name, but think it's dumb; or wonder why Memphis didn't change it when the city had a chance. One can only assume these people have never heard of the Detroit Lions, the Cincinnati Bengals or the Memphis Tigers.

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Why is Memphis' NBA team called the Grizzlies?