This week the University of Hawaii will wrap up its seventh year as a member in the Big West Conference and, truth be told, a lot of folks still aren’t sure who is in the league.

To the less frequent followers of UH sports, the California-centric Big West can sometimes seem like a confusing collection of Cal State Who’s and UC What’s after decades of familiarity with Air Force, Colorado State, Wyoming etc.

And, frankly, some of the Big West schools haven’t made it easy with an alphabet soup of initials and changing names and nicknames. Such as Cal State Northridge recasting itself as CSUN. Or, Cal State University Long Beach, as the UH baseball team’s opponent this week in Long Beach is officially known, with a shark becoming part of its latest of many attempts at branding.

CSULB is more commonly known as Long Beach State or LBSU, but that’s the easy part. For most of its soon-to-be 70-year history, the school’s teams have been known as the 49ers and, more recently, also as The Beach.

It can be perplexing, as even UH officials were made aware last month at the Big West men’s volleyball championships at the Stan Sheriff Center, where they were surprised to be pointedly instructed to refer to the team as The Beach and avoid all reference to 49ers.

But that was volleyball. The baseball team goes by the name “Dirtbags.”

And some people thought UH had too many nicknames.

When UH and Long Beach State resumed play in 2012 and “Dirtbags” began appearing in newspaper stories and headlines and on radio and TV, there were more than a few calls and emails from readers wanting to know why an apparent pejorative was used to describe the opposition.

Fact is “Dirtbags” was adopted as the preferred reference by the school’s coaches and players, who thought it reflected a gritty identity.

Last week the folks in Long Beach further muddied the situation by declaring they have “retired” their longtime Prospector Pete mascot and are adopting “the Sharks” as a new mascot after voting.

The Sharks won out with 53 percent, a school announcement said, over “Go Beach” (24.6 percent) and Stingrays (21.8 percent) in voting by 10,763 students and community members.

Getting away from the “49ers” nickname and Prospector Pete was made to disassociate the school from the Gold Rush era, which a student senate resolution termed as “culpable in violent and genocidal acts against the Indigenous peoples of California.”

However, the school said, “…the term ‘49er’ remains an informal nickname and identifier for anyone affiliated with the university as an alumnus/alumna, employee, student, or supporter.”

It said “49er” was originally intended to reference “the institution’s founding year (1949)” and the choice of the shark “now initiates a year-long development process to determine the visual look of the mascot, its personality characteristics, design of mascot uniforms and illustrations, and any associated word marks.”

Meanwhile, Hawaii Pacific University, which ditched Sea Warriors for Sharks in 2014, and Nova Southeastern University in Davie, Fla., which took up the name in 2005 after dumping Knights, probably shouldn’t expect any royalties.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.