March Mascot Madness

So I realize that it is actually April.  I meant to write this blog several weeks ago.  It didn't happen-- oh well, the title is still applicable.  Way back in March I was filling out my basketball brackets for the NCAA tournament.  I was going to do a research study on whether I had a better percentage with filling out the bracket flipping a coin, picking based on the mascot, or based on my own knowledge.  However due to general life happening I didn't keep track of the games and lost interest.  Let's just say with my coin flip bracket I had North Carolina Central winning the whole kit and caboodle.  (Side note: For much of my life I have had trouble distinguishing certain words in common phrases.  I may have just realized that the phrase "the whole kit and caboodle" is not "the whole kitten and poodle" which I have been hearing all my life-- A little piece of the world suddenly makes much more sense than it has in the past)

I have always found school mascots slightly intriguing so I especially enjoyed filling out the "toughest mascot" bracket.  My basic guidelines for toughest mascot match ups were carnivores beat herbivores, people with guns beat carnivores but carnivores beat people without guns, and natural disasters kind of take out everything.  With those basic guidelines though there were some mascots that just don't fit.

Some of the more interesting mascots include the Coastal Carolina Chanticleers, the Delaware Blue Hens, the Wofford Terriers, and the Manhattan Jaspers.  Coastal Carolina's mascot is based on a rooster from The Nun's Tale in the Canterbury Tales.  The actual mascots nickname is Chauncey after Chaucer.  The state bird of Delaware is a blue hen so thus it is their mascot (less original than I thought). Wofford's mascot is a terrier but their logo is a big W.  Manhattan College was probably the trickiest mascot to find.  I have no idea what a Jasper is and their logo is a big M.  Let me just say that while I am sure Wofford and Manhattan are wonderful schools someone in the graphics design program could add a little pizazz to the logo or create a drawing of the mascot for some originality. (I would like to state that these are the opinions of the writer and only opinions on  subject I don't really know much about through my 5 minutes of research).  It turns out a Jasper is name after Father Jasper, one of the important men in the history of the school supposedly credited with making the 7th inning stretch popular. I am sad to say that in my mascot bracket none of these teams fared well-- the Spartans were the obvious choice over the Blue Hens.  

There are two other colleges worth mentioning in this discussion in mascots didn't make it to the Big Dance this year, partly because they are not NCAA DI schools.  The first the Santa Cruz Banana Slugs. 

Originally they were the sea lions but the student body mutinied and the student-athletes voted to be the "Slugs" as well.  The other school is the St. Louis College of Pharmacy's mascot-- the Eutectic.  Here's the explaination from the school's website:
 “Eutectic” describes the scientific process of two solids being combined to form a liquid.  A common term in pharmacy, it is the perfect metaphor for the school's intercollegiate athletic program – combining athletics and a demanding academic program.

The mascot at games is Mortarmer McPestle and their gym is nicknamed "The Pillbox".  Their previous mascot was a purple dinosaur named Rex (Rx) but when Barney came on the scene in the early 1990s they decided it was time for a change.  (Side note:  St. Louis has a high concentration of odd mascots including the University of St. Louis Billikens and University of Missouri-St. Louis Tritons (nothing like a mythical Greek sea god in the Midwest).  

In my bracket the Iowa State Cyclones won it all.  I suppose growing up in Tornado Alley I have seen the power and destruction of cyclones and that they will take out anything in their path regardless of where it is a human with a gun, carnivore, or anything else.  That is unless Father Jasper has enough pull with the Almighty to calm the storm.  Omni Vincit Amor.