Meet The Latest In NCAA Mascots

Bill Geist Visits With Those Furry Cheerleaders: Bulldogs, Mullosks And Vegetables

(CBS)  From the start of March Madness to tomorrow night's final showdown, college basketball teams present their game face to the end - and what faces some of them are. Bill Geist has compiled a portrait gallery:

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The NCAA basketball tournament: an annual eruption of exciting games, crazed fans and goofy, often perplexing, mascots

Yesterday at the tourney, there were Bruins and Tigers, Tarheels and Jayhawks.

What's a jayhawk, you ask? It's a genetic cross between a blue jay and a sparrow hawk - a rare bird peculiar to Kansas.

Mascots are meant to stir school spirit, unite fans, and if possible strike fear in the hearts of opponents.

So there were the usual ferocious bulldogs and ornery eagles this year, as well as some surprising exotics like toreros and … governors?

So far no fighting state comptrollers.

You know, coming up with a good mascot can be really hard to do. Take the Georgetown Hoyas. Hoya is the Greek word meaning "what" or "such" … what does a "what" or a "such" look like? Everybody's default mascot, a bulldog.

School symbols can also be hard to hold onto.

My school, Illinois, had to get rid of its revered Chief Illiniwek after 80 years because he allegedly offended the Illini tribe (which disappeared 250 years ago).

Stanford used to be the Indians, but their unofficial omnipresent mascot is now a tree.

A tree seems inoffensive enough but it's been thrown out of games for drinking and fighting … yes, mascots do tussle!

Some schools are taking the safe path, going with unidentifiable fur-balls that look like friends of Barney. Some mascots are downright bizarre.

Evergreen State College in Washington went with the geoduck, a mollusk (Look, I'm a mollusk!).

But alas, that too offends some people with its unattractive, some say almost obscene appearance.

In costume, what am I now? A banana slug - a UC-Santa Cruz banana slug, a slimy creature apparently designed to disgust the opposition.

But my favorite school mascot comes fresh from the produce aisle … the artichoke. The "Fighting Artichokes" of Scottsdale Community College. Really!

I asked Artie the Artichoke is he ever wished he were a tiger or cougar or screaming eagle or somebody really nasty?

Artie motioned no. (Artie can't talk, a trait common to thistle-vegetables).

We went to see college president Art DeCabooter, who said students had elected the artichoke their mascot. Why?

"What do you get when you get to the middle of an apple, you get to the middle of a banana, you get to the middle of kumquat? Nothing," he told Geist. "You get heart when you get to the middle of an artichoke. Can you imagine anything more beautiful than that?"

So that's what it's all about: Heart of the artichoke

"I'm almost tearing up," DeCabooter admitted.

But what does the basketball team think?

"We're probably the only fighting vegetables out there, but it's OK," said coach Paul Eberhardt.

Is it better than broccoli or lettuce?

"Without question," he said. "Artichoke's got a little dignity to it. If we were the broccoli or cauliflower I don't think we'd be any good."

His players aren't quite so sure.

One said, "I think we'd do better with a tougher mascot. I didn't even know what an artichoke was until I looked it up [and] I found out it was a vegetable."

The school hired editorial cartoonist Brian Fairington recently to toughen up Artie's image a bit - give him an artichoke make-over.

"At first it sounded like a lot of fun, but as I got into it I realized, this is a challenge," Brian said.

The suggestions were to make him more muscular and more fierce, in a sort of traditional college mascot way.

What he came up with was what you’d get if you injected an artichoke with steroids. You wouldn't want to meet this artichoke in a dark alley.

Students say Artie's pretty scary (in his own way). And that's good for a mascot. Witness the T-shirt that says, "Fear the Artichoke."

And practically the whole campus now seems in the grip of artichoke fever …which makes people do some pretty strange things.

"Here we go, artichoke, here we go! Here we go, artichoke, here we go!" they cheer.

Who knew that as a mascot, as well as a hot party dip, the artichoke would be such a hit?

[nancytitus]

A lot of nice white folks have been nostalgic for the plantation too. There is always a regret for the good old days when men were men and women were glad of it. I propose that all the media people who enjoy their bully platform change the names and mascots of their clubs,teams and private schools to The Pink Men. I see them all scrubbed up and shiny, going out their doors to bask in their own glory.

[barbarakr]

I have been a big fan of Bill Geist but this latest story on mascots that included the U of Illinois retired mascot Chief Illiniwek left me feeling betrayed and disappointed. I see that already Illini and related peoples are proclaiming their existence - as well they should! What saddened me was the claim of Geist that he "revered" that mascot. If that is true, he has been duped by a false American history that prefers these ridiculous stereotypes over real understanding which is far more complicated. I''ve frequently enjoyed the stories on CBS done by Geist for their quirky, homespun form of Americana. This story reveals a dark side that prefers to cover up rather than shed light on our shared, too often violent, history. It is my sincere hope that CBS takes this matter into serious consideration and do at least one full-length story on some aspect of current life in "Indian Country" - there''s plenty to choose from that will enlighten, entertain, and celebrate - all features that I believe are more in keeping with the goals of CBS Sunday Morning.

[whoami54]

School symbols can also be hard to hold onto.
My school, Illinois, had to get rid of its revered Chief Illiniwek after 80 years because he allegedly offended the Illini tribe (which disappeared 250 years ago).
Stanford used to be the Indians, but their unofficial omnipresent mascot is now a tree.
A tree seems inoffensive enough but it''s been thrown out of games for drinking and fighting %u2026 yes, mascots do tussle!
Some schools are taking the safe path, going with unidentifiable fur-balls that look like friends of Barney. Some mascots are downright bizarre.

Offened I am not by mascots. Butt get something right mr. deist. We have not disappeared

[bfair97]

Redesigning this mascot was the highlight of my career. Artie for President.

[bfair97]

Redesigning this mascot was the highlight of my career. Artie for President.

[newscritic5]

I loved the story about the artichoke mascot! Bill might be interested to know that the high school I graduated from in Shelley, Idaho was the home of the Russets. We had a potato for our mascot; in fact, my daughter was the mascot her senior year and I helped make her costume out of a burlap potato sack. Our opponants always said things like, "Mash the Russets! or they called us flakes or tater tots. Now my 10-year-old grandson says coming from the school of King Russet must be "embarrassing." But all the alumni still have Russet Pride!

[plangi-2009]

In their Rules of Engagement for posting here, CBS requests "no insulting groups or individuals" but don''t hold themselves to the same rule as evidenced by this segment of today''s show.

Bill Geist''s segments often bring a smile but not this morning. I was dismayed by his uninformed comments about the mascot of the University of Illinois. Such comments, especially on a nationally televised program, only serve to perpetuate the misunderstanding that American Indians are primarily part of the past and that their concerns are not important and valid. I am angered and saddened that Mr Geist and the program''s producers fail to see the contemporary and vital individuals who are members of over 500 Native Nations within the US.

The film In Whose Honor and the site for the National Coalition on Racism in Sports and the Media http://www.aimovement.org/ncrsm/ provide some history and information on this issue.

[stephenk8]

It''s a shame Bill Geist did not learn the difference between people and plants when he was a student at Illinois. Perhaps if he did, he would not be lamenting the loss of Little Red Sambo, aka Chief Illiniwek, the former Illinois mascot.

It appears what Geist did learn was, in the absence of factual information, make it up.

[stephenk8]

It''s a shame Bill Geist did not learn the difference between people and plants when he was a student at Illinois. Perhaps if he did, he would not be lamenting the loss of Little Red Sambo, aka Chief Illiniwek, the former Illinois mascot.

It appears what Geist did learn was, in the absence of factual information, make it up.

[stephenk8]

It''s a shame Bill Geist did not learn the difference between people and plants when he was a student at Illinois. Perhaps if he did, he would not be lamenting the loss of Little Red Sambo, aka Chief Illiniwek, the former Illinois mascot.

It appears what Geist did learn was, in the absence of factual information, make it up.

[stephenk8]

It''s a shame Bill Geist did not learn the difference between people and plants when he was a student at Illinois. Perhaps if he did, he would not be lamenting the loss of Little Red Sambo, aka Chief Illiniwek, the former Illinois mascot.

It appears what Geist did learn was, in the absence of factual information, make it up.