for all you NCAA basketball fans

I know there's some of you out there watching. You secretly like Dick Vitale's raspy voice, I know it. I do.... Wait, what??

Anyways, in light of March Madness and the Final Four, and college decisions (yay!), I wanted to post this cute little college mascot awards list from Steve Popp's blog. The Mascots are truly the source of Madness!

Most Impressive Array of Mascots by a State University System: The University of California. The UC Santa Barbara Gauchos, the UC Irvine Anteaters and the UC San Francisco Dons, all wonderfully complement the UC Santa Cruz Banana Slugs.

Way to represent California, you Banana Slug, you.

Mascot Most Likely to Scare Small Children: The Purdue Boilmaker.

Oh, you're definitely scary alright.

Most Outdated Mascot: The Manhattan Jaspers. The Jaspers were named after Brother Jasper, a Christian clergyman from the 1880s who brought sports to the college.

Most Creative Name for Having a Chicken as a Mascot: Trinity College (Connecticut) Bantams.

Most Oxymoronic Mascot: The University of Pennsylvania Fighting Quakers. My personal favorite!

Most Likely to Confound a Meteorologist Mascot: The Tulsa Golden Hurricane. According to the University of Tulsa, when in 1922 the team looked for a new name, the more apropos “Tornadoes” was already taken.

Best Alternative Mascot to Official School Mascot: The Long Beach State “Dirtbags.” All Long Beach State teams officially are the 49ers, but the baseball team goes by the “Dirtbags.” The Wichita State Shockers, who have a doozy of a mascot themselves, lost to Long Beach State this month producing one of the best sports headlines of the year, “ Shocks fall to Dirtbags 7-4.”

My personal favorite mascots?

The Stanford Tree: This guy is amazing. Every Stanford basketball game I go to, the tree seems to always be different. Little secret? I dream of being the person who gets to dance and twirl around in this tree. The Stanford tree is. bad. ass. end of story. It's just an added bonus he gets to dance around to the music the crazy infamous Stanford Band plays.

University of California's Oskie the Bear: Just look at this guy! He reminds me of my grandpa. It's just slightly ironic my dad went there. Check out his old school Varsity Cardigan, I want! He's got those classy white gloves on, and crew socks going on. Everytime I go to a Cal game, he's roaming the court like it's nobody's business. Oskie the Bear is a true class act.

What's your favorite/craziest/weirdest college mascot?

stay classy,
madeleine