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Turf Talk: Whatcha Talkin’ 'Bout Utah?

Picture of Sparky in the window at the DPC on ASU's downtown campus in Phoenix. Photo by Brendan Capria.
Picture of Sparky in the window at the DPC on ASU's downtown campus in Phoenix. Photo by Brendan Capria.

He wasn’t only wearing a neon wind-jacket and a grin, but also a faded Sun Devil hat. Wade Houy’s grin, ear-to-ear, resembled the sweat-stained Sparky emblem on his head — the Phoenix resident could not help but to laugh.

I guess cougars weren’t as ferocious as people thought; he had the giddy school-girl laugh to prove it.

But what really had Houy going was when he heard that cougars are demeaning. That is, according to a high school in Utah that banned its cougar mascot in fear that it was demeaning to women. New culture suggests that the “cougar” can be another name for an attractive older woman. Sorry, you cool cat, you have been replaced.

“What came to my mind is ‘are you serious!?’” Houy says. “They’re reading into it too much.”

Years have passed and meaning, in everything, has changed.  The cougar is not an animal but a “finer feline” and in comparison to Arizona State University, we’ve had our fair share of mascot change.

We had a hoot with the owl during the territorial normal school years, the bulldog was pretty brute and now we “Fear the Fork” — Sparky is our right-hand man.

The cool part about our mascots is that none of them were “corrected” and changed to please. Even in the midst of criticism.

The Phoenix Gazette had profiled a California man, Jack Thompson, in February 1987. The kicker: he was a sixty-year-old Christian who was ruthless when it came to Satan. Arizona State’s “imp” logo back then was just ludicrous in his eyes.

He went on to rant that “people don’t understand. They think it’s a toy”; “’absolutely’ that using a devilish mascot…leads to problems such as drug and alcohol abuse, sexual immortality, and school dropouts”—blah, blah, blah.

At least that’s what the university heard. Nothing happened. Even in 1948, near the birth of Sparky, we didn’t budge. When a Texas Christian university, Le Tourneau Tech, took stabs we didn’t burn for our mascot.

The Arizona Statesman reported that Le Tourneau thought that “Surely those students… wish to be considered as murderers, liars, deceivers, accusers…and destined for a lake of fire!”

We dug our pitchforks deep into the dirt. Unphased, Sparky still stands.

We have seen high schools stripped of their Indian mascots — rightfully so — and we’ve seen an outcry to put the kitty back into his cage. And we’ve seen the Sun Devil be criticized at the hands of Christian belief.

“Still, (a cougar) should be the animal. That’s so silly,” says Lauren Jacobs, a 2011 alumni.

Still, we are the Sun Devils.

“(Sparky) has been around for so long. Even if it hurts a few people you’re going to forever know Arizona State by it,” Houy says.

While society is trying to correct every little thing, they forgot the representation of pride through the mascot — not hot women or Satan.

“I’d be indifferent if they changed the mascot,” Jacobs says. “I think they should, but…”

Is that very hesitancy in Jacobs what we’re experiencing with everyone else who is offended? Do people really understand the true history of our mascot and what it truly represents?

If so, now it just needs to be consistent elsewhere.

But let’s say a “Jack Thompson” were to prevail. So, hypothetically, if we had to make everyone happy, we should make the mascot a little friendlier, eh? Let’s say the Sun Unicorns? That won’t demean anyone, right?

“That’d be too funny,” Houy says; again, with that very grin on his face.

Failing to recognize what the mascot represents past the name is what kills me. It’s what makes Houy laugh and what makes Jacobs hesitate.

 

So, where’s the line and why are mascots so conditional nowadays? Is Sparky over the top or just amazing? Get back to me with your opinion at bcapria@asu.edu.


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