Coming up with a good school mascot is a difficult assignment, as evidenced by the options presented this week to students, alumni and staff of the University of Illinois Springfield.
The school’s athletics sports teams currently are known as the Prairie Stars, a nickname that dates back to 1977 when UIS was Sangamon State University.
Students have asked for a new, modern mascot, although alumni have indicated they are OK with continuing the Prairie Stars tradition. UIS hired Louisville, Ky., consultant Studio Simon to come up with some possibilities.
The company proposed four: Mammoths, Sabers, Stampede and Springers.
The suggested mascots are – to put it as delicately as possible – strange. It’s almost as if the consultants took a stroll through the Illinois State Museum to mine ideas.
The editorial was published on November 20, 2013 in The State Journal-Register.
Read the editorial online
