I'm not sure about this whole argument concerning college names, but it seems to me that the distinctions are made according to the state's main campus, as was pointed out. In Indiana, the Hoosiers are at IU-Bloomington, a campus more well known simply as, "IU" or "Indiana". Other IU schools have athletics. They just call themselves "IU-South Bend", "IU-Terre Haute" or whatever. Granted, these schools don't compete at the same level of IU- Bloomington. But the principle is the same. SUNY offers something a bit different. Since there really isn't a central SUNY school, the schools are often referred to as "___ State", or "SUNY ___". Even Albany and Buffalo, two schools with DI football programs are commonly known as "Albany State" and "UB" respectively. The hoopla with Amherst and Lowell is interesting, but will ultimately be worked out. Why not be "Amherst State" or "Lowell State"? And I'm not sure making a distinction between the two is all that troublesome. Maybe I'm missing something here. But school pride appears to be the real subtext to this contraversy. John-Andrew Murphy HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey; send information to [log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.