by Shawn Borin

Created on: August 03, 2010

The Strangest College Mascots

Go, Fight, Win?

A lot of thought goes into where a person goes to college.   Prospective students consider many factors to decide on where to go to college including major, the school’s reputation, rankings, and extracurricular.   One thing all students must consider is the school mascot.

School mascots serve as a symbol for a college and in many ways reveal that school’s character.  The school mascot can tell how seriously academics play a role in the everyday life of a student and how much fun the school can be.  Or perhaps the mascot does none of this but just serves as a bit of fun and a symbol of pride.   But when one looks around the Country it becomes obvious that some mascots are just plain strange.  The following is a list of some of the strangest school mascots.

The Rhode Island School of Design

The Rhode Island School of Design, known as RISD, is a fine arts and design college located in Providence, Rhode Island. Founded in 1877, RISD is considered the best fine arts college in the United States. RISD contains one the best fine arts museums in the United States and accepts students from all over the world.

However, while RISD is known as a great fine arts school, it is not well known for its sports programs. RISD yields an ice hockey team who has affectionately been named the Nads. The official slogan for the ice hockey team is "GoNads." RISD also fields a basketball team known as the balls. The official slogan for the basketball team is "When the heat is on, the Balls stick together." With such unusual names, it is no wonder that the unofficial/official mascot for RISD is Scrotie, Scrotie is a man sized penis that wears a red cape.  It doesn’t get much stranger than that.

The University of California, Santa Cruz

The University of California, Santa Cruz is one of ten schools that make up the University of California. Located on a hillside above the city of Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz's campus is a beautiful forested area that overlooks the Pacific Ocean. UCSC was founded in 1965 and is a modern research university and known for its student political activism.

UCSC began its sports program in 1981 and offers Division III sports including basketball, soccer and volleyball. In 1981, the original mascot was announced as the sea lions but most students objected. In 1986, the students voted to declare the official mascot of UCSC to be the banana slug. For those

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