The Daily Campus

Issue date: 3/24/09 Section: Sports

Media Credit: Matt Lin While Dubs the Washington Husky may have his own blog, Jonathan has untouchable swag.

Last month, I brought up the hypothetical question of which Big East mascot would win in a fight. Sure, it was a silly question, but it was one that I thought needed to be addressed. After going through all the mascots, the choice was clear: Jonathan the Husky was the mascot who could win any fight.

In a breaking news e-mail sent to the Daily Campus sports department Monday, it was determined that Jonathan the Husky was ranked as the fifth best mascot in the 2009 NCAA Tournament, according to petside.com.

I guess it wasn't such a silly question after all.

If you go to their Web site, petside.com, and type in mascots in the search bar, the first article will be the list of the top 10 mascots in the NCAA Tournament.

Now, while claiming the No. 5 spot out of 65 teams may sound like a big deal, there's something about the list that just doesn't sit well in my stomach.

Claiming the fourth through second spots are Louisville's Cardinal Bird, Gonzaga's Spike the Bulldog, Villanova's Will D. Cat, respectively. Let me break this down for a second.

The Cardinal Bird is a pretty cool mascot, but he's known to Louisville students simply as "bird." What kind of lame name is that?

At least Spike the Bulldog and Will D. Cat have decent names.

But yet with Spike, he has nothing else to show for himself besides a cool name. He's a bulldog from Gonzaga. I'm pretty sure half the people in Sports Nation don't even know where Gonzaga is.

I have to give props to Villanova for dishing out the best name of a mascot in college basketball. Sorry Jonathan, but Will D. Cat has a first, middle and last name. I would easily give Villanova the best mascot in the Tournament, except I did a little research to the meaning behind the mascot, and what I found wasn't pretty.

In the 1930s and '40s, Villanova kept live, wild cats on campus in cages.

In addition to that, the cats started having behavioral problems from being kept in cages and from constantly being around large crowds. And as a final zinger, the cats were kept outside all year long, including the cold weather months. Luckily for Villanova, PETA still had 40 years to go before they became an official organization.

Continued...

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