Illini mascot search remains up in the air

Hot weather soon will be replaced with brisk temperatures and the start of another collegiate football season. The University of Illinois begins its 2023 fall campaign Sept. 2.

The Fighting Illini open under the lights against the University of Toledo Rockets of the Mid-American Conference. The season ends Nov. 25 at home against in-state rival Northwestern University, although kick-off time for the finale remains hazy.

Unlike the state’s flagship university, the Ohio team has a mascot, Rocky the Rocket; Northwestern in Evanston fields Willie the Wildcat. Since 2007, when the Urbana-Champaign school axed the beloved Chief Illiniwek, U of I sports teams have been without a mascot, one of three Big Ten teams — Indiana and Michigan are the others — lacking one.

“The Chief ” as Chief Illiniwek was known since 1926 to his steadfast fans is still revered by many Fighting Illini alumni and students. Many U of I grads have gotten tears in their eyes when describing The Chief ’s performances on the field at Memorial Stadium and during basketball games back in the day.

Unfortunately, university officials shelved The Chief — which was supposed to represent the Illini tribes which once roamed central Illinois — due to worries over cultural appropriation. He was a made-up person played by a student whose costume actually was of Sioux — a tribe not known to reside in the Prairie State — origin.

So the Illini will lack a mascot as they begin gridiron play in the Big 10, which is expanding to 18 teams next year. Some think the once Midwest-centric conference should have expanded to 20 teams, 10 in each division. Apparently What’s A Matter U and Yooper University didn’t want to leave their respective conferences for the riches of broadcasting contracts.

Without a mascot to galvanize football fans, seems the Blue and Orange will be at a disadvantage against their upcoming opponents. Even the state’s directional universities sport mascots.

Northern Illinois has Victor E. Huskie; Western Illinois, Colonel Rock; Eastern Illinois, Billy the Panther. The University of Illinois-Springfield has a mean-looking mascot named Orion, which plays on the team’s nickname, the Prairie Stars.

Big Ten teams also have mascots. A few of them include Purdue Pete, the on-field representative of Purdue University from West Lafayette, Ind.; Sparty from Michigan State; Bucky the Badger at the University of Wisconsin; and Herky the Hawk at the University of Iowa. The next Illini mascot could well be the avian belted kingfisher (its feathers are a bluishgray with an orange belly belt, which embraces the school’s colors) if university big-wigs ever move on the proposal. It may sound fishy, but about three years ago, a small sampling of students voted modestly in a straw vote to make the bird, which is prevalent

across the Land of Lincoln, the school’s new mascot.

That action has been mired in controversy by those who want to bring back Chief Illiniwek, along with bureaucratic foot-dragging which makes pouring molasses on a cold prairie morning a rapid undertaking. It shouldn’t be difficult to come up with a replacement mascot. Other colleges and universities which dropped team names and mascots with Native American monickers didn’t take this long.

Some may argue the debate over a mascot isn’t worth the academic price of admission, yet choosing them can be heady affairs. Take the University of California-Santa Cruz, whose mascot is Sammy the Slug.

Students at UCSC rebelled at the official team name, Sea Lions, chosen by the school’s chancellor who found his name more collegiately sporting and appropriate than Banana Slugs. But, at sporting events, students continued to root for the Banana Slugs, which had been in use long before the school joined the NCAA.

Faced with two competing mascots, students voted overwhelmingly in an advisory vote in 1986 to make the Banana Slug — a real slothful and slimy creature found on the floors of the redwood forests of northern California — the official mascot. That convinced school officials to adopt the name.

Since then, Sammy the Slug has become one of the best-known national mascots, like the Leprechaun of the Fighting Irish. The Fighting Kingfishers may not yet evoke fear in the hearts of Big Ten opponents, but Kirby the Kingfisher has a certain charismatic ring to it.

Or imagine a fearsome Kenny the Kingfisher spoiling for a fight and ready to dive for a large chunk of the Big Ten pie. Oskee Wow-Wow!

(AP PHOTO/SETH PERLMAN, FILE) FILE - In this Feb. 21, 2007 file photo, University of Illinois mascot Chief Illiniwek performs for the last time during an Illinois basketball game in Champaign, Ill. Illinois says the school is ending its tradition of playing “war chant” music during sporting events. Athletic department spokesman Kent Brown says the Illini made the decision in an effort to be more inclusive and because students haven’t responded to it as much at football games. The music stems from the school’s former mascot, Chief Illiniwek, a tradition that ended in 2007.

HULSEY UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS/SPENCER These are new versions of logo for proposed new mascot at University of Illinois. They differ from ones we posted with story earlier this year.