By
Tom McDermott
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.
Corny, you say? Maybe. Such is the nature of many cherished college traditions. But it would be heresy, punishable by summary excommunication, for someone to say, "This whole flapping thing is really dumb, and we could probably save the school a lot of money if we didn't give the mascot a scholarship or send him to away games with the team."
That's why I always had a hard time understanding why alumni at schools like St. John's, which changed from the mighty and proud Redmen to the slightly more enigmatic Red Storm, didn't put up a tougher fight when the commissars of political correctness set the crosshairs on their mascots.
And they don't come after Indian mascots exclusively. Although the lunacy of the mascot hunt has lost considerable steam, it reached its height a few years ago when UMass considered dumping its mascot. Apparently, the image of the rough and ready Minuteman with trusty rifle at his side had been deemed racist and sexist by the local Ministry of Truth.
Thankfully, the alumni stepped in and thwarted their efforts.
The irrational phobia of firearms apparent in the UMass debacle also played a large part in the change of Washington's basketball team from the Bullets to the considerably less intimidating Wizards.
Clearly, though, Indian mascots draw the most fire. But has anyone ever considered that some of these mascots portray Native Americans in a very positive light? Take for example the University of North Dakota "Fighting Sioux." The Sioux tribal elders had asked the university to adopt the name in the 1930s as a tribute to their brave warriors. Their support for the name has been virtually unwavering ever since. In fact, the protests at the university over the name are led primarily by leftist faculty members who are of Ojibwa and Arikara decent, tribes which historically have been rivals of the Sioux.
And furthermore, which tribe elected activists like vociferous mascot and Columbus Day opponent Russell Means to speak on behalf of all American Indians? And why does the media recognize them as such?
Means recently debated columnist David Yeagley on Fox News Channel's Hannity and Colmes. Yeagley, a UA alumnus, was a humanities professor at Oklahoma State University who was fired for his conservative principles and for advocating that patriotism be taught in the public schools. He also happens to be full-blooded Comanche.
In response to Yeagley's question as to what was specifically racist about the Indian mascots, Means resorted to the typical ad hominem tactics of the left by insulting Yeagley's intelligence for failing to see that these mascots were "hate speech."
Never mind that not one American Indian ever actually benefited one iota from the removal of a cherished mascot. If it shows that a minuscule minority of radical Indian activists can one-up the white man, then the mascot has to go.
