IUPUI is real.

IUPUI is not just some nowhere school with a cartoonish name.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis is much more than that.

But the school name is abbreviated with such a crazy combination of letters that it has gained nationwide fame for that, and little else.

Okay, the school's basketball team hasn't won any Division I national championships, or much else. And maybe the athletic program as a whole isn't exactly a powerhouse.

But that doesn't mean IUPUI students don't sweat, bleed and cry like the rest of us. They are more than a goofy name and a blip on some big money program's non-conference schedule.

This point hit home for me when I watched the Jaguars (that's the name of their mascot, stubbornly sewn onto their jerseys in a defiant refusal to accept the role of class clown thrust upon them by the mainstream media) play Marquette's volleyball team at the Al McGuire Center Saturday during the Marquette Challenge tournament.

These were real, flesh-and-blood athletes, giving just as much and playing with just as much intensity as athletes from any other school.

Their volleyball players pushed Marquette to four games, holding their own against the Golden Eagles in the first game and winning the third game 30-20.

Marquette dominated the second and fourth games to take the match, but it was clear that the Jaguars were not as paper-thin as the plot of the summer action film "The Island."

They certainly didn't appear to be jesters, existing solely for the purpose of amusing ESPN anchors.

Relegating IUPUI to one-note quirky school status (along with Boise State, which gets similar "these guys are funny because…" treatment for the bright blue turf in their home football stadium) may be good for a quick gag on a national sports newscast or a cheap laugh in a newspaper story. But it does a disservice to all the hardworking students who actually go there.

I mean, Steve Urkel was a goofy character on "Family Matters," but Jaleel White, the actor who played him, has the same hurts, wants and needs that we all have (IMDB.com says he likes to draw and write short stories, most of which, I would imagine, depict the graphic death of Steve Urkel).

Of course, in moving from the little pond that is the Conference USA to the big sea of the Big East, Marquette runs the risk of becoming similarly marginalized.

Like ninth graders on the first day of high school, Marquette will quickly earn a label among its new conference-mates; like it or not, the recent nickname/mascot hubbub has a good chance of eclipsing the student athletes who actually make up the athletic program.

Unless, that is, the Golden Eagles play hard, as the volleyball team did Saturday, and force everyone to judge them on the basis of athletic merits alone.

This article was published in The Marquette Tribune on September 6, 2005.