Illini Pass On Otter

Thank God, University of Illinois students voted against making a river otter the new mascot of our land grant university.

Chief Illiniwek is gone….and as a joke….two students proposed Alma the Otter as the university’s new mascot. An advisory vote last week had Alma lose by 300 votes. That greatly disappointed columnist Rick Morrissey of the Chicago Sun-Times.

He thought the “playful mammal would have been the perfect answer to the ugliness.“ The ugliness was killing the Chief over a decade ago. He thought the otter was “cute and fluffy.” He loves Stanford’s dancing tree. I find it inane. The otter prompted chuckles all over the country.

There are other candidates on the horizon…a World War I soldier because of the history of Memorial Stadium…..a dancing orange bear by the name of Krush, and an eagle with the sports teams being re-branded as the “Flying Illini.”

Let’s be honest, the World War I doughboy doesn’t have a prayer. The first thing they would do is rip away his gun and his bayonet. He’d be defenseless. A dancing orange bear? Better than an otter, but still embarrassing.

I like the eagle. It’s on the state flag, we have plenty of bald eagles flying around the state…. It's dignified.

That’s why it doesn’t have a prayer.