[Cadwallon]

I've always been a bit confused by this subject.  Is the mascot something you choose to admire or dishonor?  It may have something to do with the sense of humor of the group or thing involved.  The Votre Dame mascot depiction has always looked to me like some sort of simian in a bowler hat.  It is very similar to newspaper cartoon depictions of the Irish in the nineteenth century.  I have some right to address this issue as my Irish Catholic grandmother had the KKK burn a cross in front of her house. 

I too was at Stanford when the mascot change was made.  Given the dichotomy in what feelings the mascot is supposed to evoke I came up with two suggestions.  The first being the Gryphons.  Gryphons can't possibly be insulted because they never existed and the depiction looks rather classy.  I have some personal background here as well.  My paternal grandfather was born near Greifswald in Pomerania.  Greifswald means Griffin's Woods. (It has a well renowned university which was the oldest in Sweden when it was in Sweden.) The rulers of the former country of Pomerania were known as the Griffin Dukes.  I would have suggested Pomeranians as a mascot name, but it doesn't quite fit the powerful image one would like to convey. 

That did it for "admire" half of the dichotomy.  For the "dishonor" half I suggested the Stanford Lice.  Before you react too strongly to this, I have to remind you that both the men's basketball and football teams were pretty lousy at the time.  So, the term was nothing if not descriptive.

I have always thought that the one redeeming feature of the Toejams was their choice of a mascot name.  There haven't been any Trojans around to feel honored or insulted since probably before Romulus and Remus founded Rome.  Thus it was a pretty safe choice, except, of course, that the Trojans were really big losers.  This got me to thinking of long lost peoples who might be satisfactory mascots.  The Gepids were pretty good except that they were pretty big losers as well.  I think a very interesting choice would be the Stanford Tocharians.  The Tocharians need a bit notoriety anyway.  Very few have heard of them.  They appear to have been red-haired cousins to the Celts who got lost and ended up in Sinkiang (or Xinjiang) in China.  They practiced a type of Buddhism similar to the Tibetans and that's certainly pretty trendy.  And, they managed to have two different languages, quite a symbol of sophistication.  Besides their red hair kind of goes with the cardinal color and since nobody really knows what a Tocharian looked like, the possibilities are endless.  Therefore, my current vote goes for the Stanford Tocharians.

[Cadwallon]

I've always been a bit confused by this subject.  Is the mascot something you choose to admire or dishonor?  It may have something to do with the sense of humor of the group or thing involved.  The Votre Dame mascot depiction has always looked to me like some sort of simian in a bowler hat.  It is very similar to newspaper cartoon depictions of the Irish in the nineteenth century.  I have some right to address this issue as my Irish Catholic grandmother had the KKK burn a cross in front of her house. 

I too was at Stanford when the mascot change was made.  Given the dichotomy in what feelings the mascot is supposed to evoke I came up with two suggestions.  The first being the Gryphons.  Gryphons can't possibly be insulted because they never existed and the depiction looks rather classy.  I have some personal background here as well.  My paternal grandfather was born near Greifswald in Pomerania.  Greifswald means Griffin's Woods. (It has a well renowned university which was the oldest in Sweden when it was in Sweden.) The rulers of the former country of Pomerania were known as the Griffin Dukes.  I would have suggested Pomeranians as a mascot name, but it doesn't quite fit the powerful image one would like to convey. 

That did it for "admire" half of the dichotomy.  For the "dishonor" half I suggested the Stanford Lice.  Before you react too strongly to this, I have to remind you that both the men's basketball and football teams were pretty lousy at the time.  So, the term was nothing if not descriptive.

I have always thought that the one redeeming feature of the Toejams was their choice of a mascot name.  There haven't been any Trojans around to feel honored or insulted since probably before Romulus and Remus founded Rome.  Thus it was a pretty safe choice, except, of course, that the Trojans were really big losers.  This got me to thinking of long lost peoples who might be satisfactory mascots.  The Gepids were pretty good except that they were pretty big losers as well.  I think a very interesting choice would be the Stanford Tocharians.  The Tocharians need a bit notoriety anyway.  Very few have heard of them.  They appear to have been red-haired cousins to the Celts who got lost and ended up in Sinkiang (or Xinjiang) in China.  They practiced a type of Buddhism similar to the Tibetans and that's certainly pretty trendy.  And, they managed to have two different languages, quite a symbol of sophistication.  Besides their red hair kind of goes with the cardinal color and since nobody really knows what a Tocharian looked like, the possibilities are endless.  Therefore, my current vote goes for the Stanford Tocharians.