As a basketball coach for a small college in Colorado for 15 years, I looked for ways to pass the time on long drives often over mountain passes in the snow. On the road, one game we would play in the van was to take turns naming mascots. When someone was unable to come up with a yet unnamed mascot they were out.
The game continued till the last man standing was declared the winner. I am proud to say I lost only once. I had the distinct advantage of growing up in the East and acquiring knowledge of numerous school mascots from that area that many of my players did not know, including countless variations of animals.
The movement to change offensive mascot names continues and rightly so. Our own Fort Lewis College changed from the Raiders to the Skyhawks back in the ’90s. The Raider was depicted as a saber-wielding cavalryman on horseback. This might have been an understandable, natural choice in its time for a college named for a fort. However, it is a curious choice for a school charged with educating Native Americans as part of its mission.
I remember being involved in the discussions to change the mascot. It was not as easy a decision as you might think. In addition, try to come up with a mascot that will not offend someone in our politically correct world for the next 50 years. We thought we had done it with the Skyhawk, a mythical bird that doesn’t even exist. Within several days of announcing the Skyhawk there was a letter to the The Durango Herald criticizing that choice and wondering how we could choose a mascot of death and destruction. Apparently, there was a fighter plane called a Skyhawk in the Vietnam War. It was a lesson illustrated by the 14-15th century English monk and poet John Lydgate’s quote: “You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time.”
Socrates tells us that “the unexamined life is not worth living.” We should change names that are clearly offensive but maybe we should take a different strategy in our choices altogether.
Let’s make mascots fun. The UC Santa Cruz Banana Slugs and The Scottsdale CC Artichokes are a couple of examples. In Colorado, the Fort Collins Lambkins strike fear in their opponents as do the Rocky Ford Meloneers. I recently toured the historic Yuma territorial prison in Arizona. The local high school, which used the prison for a while when the high school building burned down, adopted as their mascot the Crims, short for criminals.
The Fighting Okra of Delta State University, the Stanford University Tree, the University of California Irvine Anteaters, the Dartmouth College Keg (OK, probably not a good choice), the St. Louis University Billiken (monkish potbellied fella), the Evergreen State Geoducks (a clam pronounced goo-ee-duck). Indiana high schools are famous for their mascot choices, including the one and only Frankfort Hotdogs. As you might guess, students were involved in most if not all of these choices.
So, henceforth here is my criteria for choosing or changing a mascot:
1. Make it a local decision.
2. No outdated ethnic stereotypes.
3. Students need to be involved.
4. Make it fun.
