Where have all the mascots gone?

What is a mascot anyway? Just some silly character designed as a clever marketing tool to siphon money from the alumni, or a symbol of honor and pride, almost primal in nature, which one tribe uses as a the focal point for the morale and confidence it builds up before doing battle with another?

The mascot of my undergraduate school, St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia, is the Hawk. Our rallying cry, clearly centered around the sense of pride we feel in our mascot, is "The Hawk will never die." It is symbolized in that the Hawk has to flap his wings throughout the entire game. No matter what he is doing, even "fighting" with the other mascots, he has to keep at least one wing flapping in a slow, continuous motion.