Have you ever heard of the Orange and Blue Bird? Probably not. That was a disaster of an attempt to foist a manufactured mascot on the university that was such a disaster that not even a picture of the O-B Bird exists. I wish it did. Those who want a "goofy" mascot for the University of Illinois should know what happened before.
Yes, it was long ago, and I graduated from Illinois more than a decade before the O-B Bird was (literally) trotted out. But I don't believe its part of the University of Illinois' identity to have anuything goofy. Penn State has its saggy baggy lion, Minnesota has its grinning rodent, and Ohio State has that...nut. If anything contrived as those, perhaps as right as they may be for those institutions, were inflicted on Illinois, I expect the result would be the same as it was for the O-B Bird. At least I hope it would, because if it were embraced, the University of Illinois would have lost all respect for itself.
University leadership needs to look to the past rather than pursue a future folly
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