Columbus, Ohio
At a press conference today, Ohio State University president Michael Drake announced that the school would be changing its mascot from the long-held Brutus Buckeye to an actual buckeye nut. “In a way to move the school into the future, as well as honor the heritage of this great state, we will be making the buckeye nut our new mascot.”
As Mr. Drake put it, “We looked around at other schools, and saw that they’ve been using animal mascots for the longest time. Georgia has their bulldog, LSU has their tiger, hell, North Alabama has two lions. But we noticed that this seemingly diverse group was actually lacking one important thing: plants. And with this change, we plan to break the nature barrier with our new mascot.”
Mr. Drake also put an emphasis on making the transition swift and simple. “What we are doing here is a historic event, not just for the university, but for academia in general. The fact that we as a culture have gone so long without a truly natural mascot is a travesty, plain and simple.” When a reporter mentioned that, while not truly natural, Stanford University had already used a tree costume as a mascot, Mr. Drake seemed annoyed, stating “If you truly believe that that abomination of a “tree” Stanford calls a mascot is a better representation of plants, then you my friend are quite mistaken.” And when a student told Mr. Drake that in the case of Georgia, one of the examples he had given, the school had both real and costumed mascots, and why the university should just do the same, Mr. Drake became visibly angered, shouting “If you want to be the reason we stay in the Dark Ages, be my guest! I’m trying to make us great!” At this point, the conference abruptly ended.
When asked afterwards, student reaction towards the matter seemed mixed. Some seemed wary of using something as small as a nut as a mascot. “I thought it was odd enough that our mascot was a walking nut to begin with, but at least he had energy, and was fun to watch,” said sophomore Levi Prince. “You now expect me to get hyped by a nut? The same thing that squirrels eat? Call me cynical, but there’s no way this can work.”
Others seemed more optimistic about the matter; when asked about the issue, senior John Jenkins told us, “Yeah man, having a nut as our mascot will be totally rad. It can like, wave the flag and lead the team on the field even better than Brutus ever did! They’ll just be nuts everywhere!” He then proceeded to run off into the distance, yelling about nuts and promptly running into a tree. After a moment, we were told by a friend that Mr. Jenkins, was in fact, quite inebriated, and left it at that.
Also a factor in the issue is the economic ramifications of changing mascots suddenly. Due to Mr. Drake’s insistence on making the change right away, any stores selling merchandise have found themselves in a rough situation. Prices for Brutus-based items have dropped to next to nothing since the announcement, and some stores are now selling the items to any fans wanting to buy them, just to rid themselves of them. Witnesses have even told us that some stores, all hope gone, have taken truly desperate measures to fix their situations. There are reports of salespeople going into the street, finding a random person, and handing them, slipping them, or even just throwing at them merchandise they can’t get rid of. According to economist Lisa Sanders, “By removing Brutus from the equation, you are setting up two problems. First, you are losing the brand name recognition of a well-known mascot. While the buckeye may be the state tree of Ohio, when people think Ohio State football, they’re not going to think of a single, solitary nut. They’re going to think of Brutus. Second, you have the merchandise situation. Even accounting for the merchandise sold, paid for by store owners, and thrown at passerby, there will still be a large amount left. I wouldn’t be surprised if they just piled it all together and burned it. At least if their store burned down they’d get more money from insurance than they would have from the products.” “Not,” she hastily added, “that I’m recommending that or anything.”
The final point in the matter is what to do with Brutus. Created in 1967 as nothing more than an oversized, papier-mâché nut with legs sticking out, Brutus went on to win the hearts of fans, leading the team onto the field every Saturday and getting the crowd excited. While the university has not as of yet announced what they plan to do with the costume, sources close to the administration say there is currently a bidding war for it, between Bob’s Birthday Bodega and (allegedly) the CIA.
The university would like to make it known they have not come up with a name for the new mascot, but say it is a close heat between Billy and Balthasar Buckeye.
-Dan Maharg, Contributor