Los Angeles Sol unveils its true colors

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So now we know it.

After months, and more likely years, of being aware that it was going to field a team in Women’s Professional Soccer, the league’s Los Angeles franchise finally has a name and a logo. Details on latimes.com.

The logo, while lame, is still infinitely better than the name, which is about as bleak as it gets.

Who names a team Sol? It sounds like somebody’s doddering uncle from New Jersey.

Headline writers will appreciate its brevity -- ‘Sol Shines in Victory’ will make all too frequent appearances. But Sol? How cliche can you get in Southern California? Perhaps those who arrived at the name had something longer in mind but were interrupted in their planning.

Perhaps it was supposed to be Sol-itude -- which is what Shannon Boxx (seen at left at the Olympics) and friends will feel at the Home Depot Center come April unless they play doubleheaders with the Galaxy.

Perhaps it was supposed to be Sol-o -- which is better and would have been better still had L.A. contrived to sign goalkeeper Hope Solo instead of allowing her to go to St. Louis.

Perhaps it was supposed to be Sol-emn -- which is what WPS will be feeling when the league inevitably closes its doors and the copy editors trot out their ‘Sun Sets on Sol’ headlines.

We wish Sol well, but the name makes us feel we’ve been Sol-d out.

-- Grahame L. Jones