I need to start this space with a correction of sorts: I mistakenly wrote last week that Rob Esposito selected Florida to beat UNC in his NCAA March Madness bracket. As it turns out, Espo in fact picked UNC over Florida, which meant I was giving him far too much credit. We will now return you to The Dartmouth's only back-page column actually devoted to Dartmouth sports.
Thankfully, since my last tirade against the Dartmoose, the idea appears to have lost momentum. The Dartmoose Facebook group appears to be hemorrhaging members (it is now at 811, after being over 1000 in December), while the "Our Dartmouth Lumberjack killed your Dartmoose" group formed at the end of last term already has 559 members.
In order to attempt to gauge support for either mascot from athletes around campus, I Blitzed some athletes to see how they felt about both the Dartmoose and the Dartmouth Lumberjacks. Soccer player-turned-football kicker Chuck Zodda '09, was not in support of either mascot. He was substantially opposed to the idea of the Dartmouth Dartmoose. Zodda made the excellent point, "It's like the Philadelphia Phillies, only worse." To add to Zodda's point, at least the Phillies sounds kind of cool. Zodda, however, also was not much of a fan of the Lumberjacks, saying it just didn't "make sense" to him.
Probably the most thoughtful response I received came from my freshman roommate at Dartmouth, wide receiver and sprinter Brian Evans '08. Evans did not like the Dartmoose, though he said it was better than no mascot at all. Evans also brought up the point that the Lumberjacks have been done successfully before, as the official mascot of Stephen F. Austin State University in Texas (also a Division 1-AA school for football). Unfortunately, the women's sports teams are known as the Ladyjacks, which I am not sure is a very supportable nickname. Evans makes the case for the Lumberjacks because 1) they are large mountain men, 2) they have an axe, which let's be honest, is really intimidating, and 3) they could also be known as the Jax (or Jacks), which is short, easy and cool. I tend to agree with these arguments in general, though I am a little skeptical of the "Jacks" shortening. Northern Arizona University also uses the nickname, but the probability of Dartmouth playing either of these schools on a regular basis is miniscule at best (my high school was the Wayland Warriors, and the neighboring town's high school was the Lincoln-Sudbury Warriors. Calling it problematic would be an understatement).
Ski team captain David Chodounsky '08 and women's hockey player Carrie Thompson '08 would both prefer to remain the Big Green, although if forced to choose, would both go with the Lumberjack over the Moose. While I am personally very skeptical of the idea of the Dartmoose (or even the Dartmouth Moose), others are more positive about it. Thompson's teammate, Amy Cobb '08, is not a particularly big fan of either mascot, prefers the Moose, believing that animal mascots (in any way, shape or form) to be far superior to lumberjacks. Add in the gender issues that the lumberjack may lead to, and for Cobb, the Moose is the lesser of two bad options. Former member of the men's basketball team, Chuck Flynn '08, describes himself as a "definite advocate" of the Dartmouth Moose (but does not want it called the Dartmoose). Flynn believes that "a mascot is a necessary component of a college sports program," and I tend to agree with him there. David Jones '08, new captain of the Dartmouth men's hockey team, believes both are "a little JV for an Ivy League school", but also notes that the Manitoba Moose of the American Hockey League (yes, I know Manitoba is in Canada) have used the Moose successfully.
It appears to me that athletes have opinions on Dartmouth's mascot situations that match the varying opinions of the student body. Athletes are no more (or less) united than the rest of the student body, even if they have substantially more invested in the possibility of a new mascot roaming their sidelines. Most of them seem to want some kind of mascot, even if there is no consensus whatsoever on what that mascot should be.
