OPINION: Mason Abandoning a Winning Image

By Broadside Opinion Columnist Scott Mason

As a young university establishing traditions, it is extremely important to give a sense of belonging to one’s Alma Mater. Knowing that as an alumnus, I’ll be able to come back and almost instantly know the campus I will have left so long ago is the same in spirit. However, over the past year, many George Mason University “traditions” have changed. Most recently, this has meant the changing of our mascot Gunston.

Mason’s mascot has changed numerous times over our history of existence as a university. From the Mason Maniac to the “Puffy Patriot,” our mascot has changed numerous times to in one way or another to better represent out team name, The Patriots, and the Mason student body as a whole.

We were finally at a place where our mascot had become loved by much of the school’s student body, and easily one of the most entertaining spectacles to see at the sporting events here a Mason.

However, while Gunston may not be the fiercest mascot Mason has had, nor compared to other universities, what about Mason is conventional? Our school’s administration touts the fact, and I admire it, that Mason is unconventional. We have done things as a school that some universities would not dare to do and would not have ever dreamed possible.

In half a century, Mason has grown from a satellite college of the University of Virginia into a full-fledged research institution, complete with award-winning colleges and schools covering the Northern Virginia area and extending its prowess overseas to the United Arab Emirates.

We have established a tradition of being excellent and challenging the traditions of education, with numerous interdisciplinary programs, mixed use library and student center space, and a diverse campus filled with new opportunities for learning on a daily basis.

While we challenge the normal role of education and are constantly trying to innovate, we are trying to be like other universities by changing our mascot to something more mainstream, breaking down a tradition that followed us to the Final Four three years ago and CAA championships last year.

If we, as a university, ever want to have traditions, we need to stop changing them whenever we stick our neck out beyond the norm. Traditions are not easy, but they come with time, hardened by criticism and strengthened by success.
While the identity of our new mascot is shrouded in mystery until tonight’s game, another point is worth mentioning. The women’s basketball team had its home opener last Friday.

Why didn’t the new mascot get premiered then? I am sure the women’s team would have appreciated the care and support the university would have been about to front had they decided to make their opening game just as important as the men’s.

Yes, the program is not the most popular, but having a solid audience to watch them perform for the first time this year along with celebrating the change of our new mascot could surely have made a difference and really made their Friday night game a real event for students to attend. Instead, the new mascot will be premiering on a Monday, when many of us have class to attend and cannot afford to stay out too late even if we do not have class because it is a Monday night.

While I do understand that men’s basketball is a big deal at this school, and our most profitable sport, it can be seen as selective programming or even sexist on the school’s part to go about the unveiling of the mascot at the first men’s home game and not the women’s.

This school is innovative, different and above all, the number one up-and-coming school in the nation, and it seems that the things that have been propelling Mason forward are the things that set us apart. Why marginalize that by trying to be like everyone else and changing one of the most identifiable symbols of our school, our fuzzy, green, strange, goofy mascot Gunston. This time, innovation may not be the right thing for the university to do, especially if it is to only conform to normalcy.