The American public tends to be ignorant of any history that hasn't been the subject of a TV series, and so it was no surprise when market detectives hired by the national YMCA found members of that public to be “confused” about what it is, exactly, that a Young Men's Christian Association is. That is easy to understand. The Y does not act like a church or any other faith-based social service agency, and I can attest since the days when I used to cavort there that their doors are open to heathens, and the only sin they warned me against was athlete's foot.
The Y's national officers eased that confusion in July by eliminating its cause. They simply changed the organization's public name to “the Y,” as part of a re-branding campaign meant to . . . . Well, what the change is meant to do was never quite made clear, but we can guess. The problem faced by the Y's national mucky-mucks is simple. The Y that once worked to capture souls now hopes to capture market share; once it competed with commercial vice, now it competes against commercial health clubs such as Fit Club and Gold's. Being identified as Christian narrows your potential market. So, presumably, does being identified as a men's organization – not good for an organization that must sell itself to young mothers and body-conscious older women.
