Why did it take so long? Finally, a minority group has taken the logical step and chosen a “White Guy” as a mascot.

For years, Native Americans have complained about the use of Indian images as mascots for sports teams made up of non-Indian players and fans. Recently, a group of students at the University of Northern Colorado have taken “The Fighting Whities” as the nickname of their intramural basketball team.

An Associated Press story says that the team is made up of American Indians, Hispanics and Anglos and chose a Euro-centered mascot because a high school in its hometown of Greeley refused to do away with its nickname, “Reds” and Indian mascot.

I have long hoped that a group would do something like that ... if only so they can see the picayune nature of their aggravation. I think that Native Americans miss the point when they complain about use of Indian images as team mascots.

Mascots generally are chosen to represent courage, strength, skill, nobility, beauty … all sorts of virtues. Therefore, courageous, strong, noble, beautiful symbols are used.

The power of a Tornado, the ferocity of a Dragon or a Tiger, the determination of a Stockader … Senecas, Warriors, Mohawks and Redmen hold their own very well in such company. They are not images of which to be ashamed.

Solomon Little Owl is director of Native American Student Services at the college and is a member of the intramural basketball team. He told AP that the intent is simply to show people what it is like to have your culture used as a sports team mascot.

Well, Sol, truth is, it doesn’t really make any difference. We don’t care. If it is an “Us-Them” issue to you, that’s your problem, not ours. I love WASP jokes. European-American men are funny. It often takes a non-white to point it out to us, but we are.

We walk stiffly, we don’t like touching other people, we have power-tool envy, we are culturally egotistical. This all is good joke-fodder.

Someone once said that “The man who has no sense of humor is at the mercy of everyone else.”

If you missed the “Season on the Brink” movie on ESPN and ESPN2 last weekend but have a chance to see it in the future … don’t bother.

The movie was based on John Feinstein’s book of the same name and claims to chronicle Bobby Knight’s 1986 season as head basketball coach at the University of Indiana.

Bobby Knight is an interesting personality. Sometimes his in-your-face manner is appealing, sometimes it’s repulsive. You envy him his intensity and you pity him for it.

I also am a fan of Brian Dennehy, who played Knight. So I was eager to see the program.

Two versions were shown. The “unedited” version with the profanity left in was on ESPN. The “edited” version, with bleeps replacing the offensive words, was shown on ESPN2.

I chose to watch the latter. It didn’t help much.

Note to John Feinstein: There is such a thing as literary license, which means you don’t have to portray an episode in minutely accurate detail at the risk of the detail interfering with your communication with your audience. In other words, you can clean up the language if you want.

There was little if any real character analysis in a film which was all about one character. No background that might explain Knight’s personality, his swings back and forth between benevolent angel and vitriolic pottymouth … only glimpses of the various degrees of his behavior.

It had all the depth of a sneaker mark on a hardwood floor.

Back to the History Channel.