Most US universities have mascots, usually large suited creatures which bear only passing resemblance to the animals on which they are loosely based. Many of them are bears, birds or similar but some are really odd and this site highlights some of the strangest ones.
UK universities do not seem to have as many really odd ones. This video of the annual BUCS mascot race from includes some of the fastest:
One of my favourite UK mascots is Anglia Ruskin’s Rhino, named, unsurprisingly, Ruskin the Rhino and pictured here on a visit to the University’s student services department
No UK mascot though is quite as odd as Speedy the Geoduck (pronounced ‘gooey-duck’), the mascot of Evergreen State College and based on the large burrowing clam found in the Pacific North West.
This is his song:
Go, Geoducks go,
Through the mud and the sand,
let’s go.
Siphon high, squirt it out,
swivel all about,
let it all hang out.
Go, Geoducks go,
Stretch your necks when the tide
is low
Siphon high, squirt it out,
swivel all about,
let it all hang out.
Nice. Some of the other US ones really are special, including the Fighting Artichoke of Scottsdale Community College
and Sammy the Banana Slug of the University of California-Santa Cruz
Who can argue with Gladys the Fighting Squirrel of Mary Baldwin College
and best of all, Scrotie, the highly improbable mascot of Rhode Island School of Design
Given the many new universities we can expect to be established in the UK in the near future I’m hoping for some more creative mascot work here too.
Which is your favourite university mascot? What more interesting mascots should some existing universities adopt?
Kent has, for some reason which I have never been able to fathom, a rabbit as it’s mascot!
UC Santa Cruz Banana Slugs
“The Banana Slug, a bright yellow, slimy, shell-less mollusk commonly found on the redwood forest floor, was the unofficial mascot for UC Santa Cruz coed teams since the university’s early years. The students’ embrace of such a lowly creature was their response to the fierce athletic competition fostered at most American universities”
https://www.ucsc.edu/about/mascot.html
“Kent is the paw-fect mascot for the University of Kent as he and hundreds of his furry friends hang out at the University. You’ll find them living hoppily all over campus, but they especially like haring around outside the library. We can’t believe you haven’t spotted them – how bunny!
He’s already busy planning this year’s Epic Easter Egg Hunt – watch this space! ”
The ‘Kent bunny’ exists because there are so many rabbits on the Canterbury campus!
City University London mascot is a carrot. Go figure!