Techsters to Bulldogs: Wood talks about name change

Here come the Bulldogs.

That’s typically what you’ve heard attending a Louisiana Tech football or men’s basketball game in years past, but starting this fall, that namesake is crossing over after the Tech Athletic Department announced all women’s sports, other than women’s basketball, will now compete under the nickname “Bulldogs.”

The move impacts softball, soccer, bowling, cross country, tennis, track and field, and volleyball.

But why the change in brand identity, and why now?

The Leader spoke with Wood Thursday to further discuss the name change, why women’s basketball wasn’t impacted, and more.

RDL: How long has this process been in the works, and why did it finally happen?

Wood: “In my first year, I didn’t hear formally from anybody but started to hear rumblings from student athletes individually and some coaches about it, but like I said, nothing formal.

“Then last year, I got a formal proposal from the student athlete advisory committee on behalf of the group that’s got representatives with at least two student athletes per team on it. It was pretty consistent amongst the women’s sports that they wanted this.

“And with it only being my second year then, we had enough going on and I didn’t want to make an emotional decision because I understood the gravity of it, so we evaluated and sat on it for a couple years and we figured we’d make that move before this season.”

RDL: Why did the athletes want the name changed?

Wood: “We noticed a lot of our women’s sports would put Tech on their uniforms instead of Techsters and honestly from a lot of the athletes, since they’ve come here, they were told they were joining the Bulldogs and they wanted to be Bulldogs and do the Bulldog sign, and they had nothing to do with the Lady Techsters for as much as we were putting it with them.

“In meeting with players and coaches over the years, I heard a lot of, ‘We want to be Bulldogs and use it on our team breakdowns and chants,’ and they started asking for Bulldog logos and stuff and we tried to go building from there.

“We looked at it from a brand engagement standpoint while we also wanted to respect tradition as much as we could there. Having 15 of our 16 sports be the Bulldogs is just an easier brand to get across.”

RDL: Was there ever a thought of changing the women’s basketball program’s name? Will it ever be changed?

Wood: “Again, part of this is what we’re hearing from our athletes. And don’t misunderstand what I’m saying, they don’t run the show and determine every decision we make.

“But they have a significant voice in every decision, and on women’s basketball we’ve never heard from them. I don’t want to speculate on that, but I’ve not heard from Coach [Brooke] Stoehr or any of our players that’s something they want changed. So as far as that goes, it’ll stay the ‘ Lady Techsters’ name, and no, it won't change."

RDL: Will stadium/field renovations need to take place? (The Tech soccer and softball scoreboards currently say ‘Lady Techsters’ above the score panels).

Wood: “There will be certain things like our social media and other branding items that will have changes phased in, but we’ll do our due diligence and work on anything that needs to be changed.”