You painstakingly applied to colleges and universities all over New York and ruled them out one by one. One school had too many people; it was just too big for your liking. Another did not have the program you wanted and another school did not feel like a great fit. Finally, after all the searching and eliminating schools, you land on SUNY Oswego. Everything at Oswego falls into place. There are great people, award-winning programs, fantastic sports teams and events so fun that you commit to attending. You get a letter in the mail that says, “Welcome to SUNY Oswego, home of the Lakers!” This makes you stop in your tracks.

  Lakers?  What are Lakers? It suddenly dawns on you that the amazing college that you chose, that fits you perfectly,has a helm (a ship’s steering wheel) as its mascot.

Mascot Madness is a SUNY-wide competition that has taken place since 2013. Each SUNY school enters its mascot “to find out who the fans feel is the best in all of New York,” according to the Mascot Madness site. It has been a number of years since SUNY Oswego entered and when they did enter, the statue of Edward Austin Sheldon located on the lawn of Sheldon Hall was representing our school. It is obvious why Oswego has not entered for a

number of years: our beloved school knows in their heart of hearts they simply cannot win Mascot Madness with our current mascot. A ship’s steering wheel is not creative or fun enough to smash the competition.

Having a helm as Oswego’s mascot definitely keeps our dear school from having some serious fun. Could you imagine going to the White Out hockey game and having an actual mascot come out onto the ice? Imagine the mascot skating the rink between the periods of the game with a t-shirt cannon getting the crowd riled up. School spirit and morale would be through the roof.

Yes, changing Oswego’s mascot and completely rebranding would cost a pretty penny, but Oswego is definitely used to changing things around. In 1948, Oswego expanded not just to a school for teaching, but it developed programs in the sciences and arts. Countless buildings have been constructed on campus since the 1960s. Others have been renovated and changed around, even currently.

New clubs have been formed, and students from all walks of life come to learn at Oswego. Countless professors and alumni have walked these grounds. SUNY Oswego needs to remember its past and know that change is not necessarily a bad thing. Their students deserve an actual mascot.

The only problem with this change is deciding what our new mascot should be.

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