Weird and college go together, trust me

I love college. I better since I went to three different colleges to earn three degrees. Earned a bachelor’s degree from LSU, a master’s from the University of Arizona and a doctorate from Southern Illinois University.

Now, I teach in college. Started at Southern Mississippi, then moved over to Loyola University in New Orleans, then headed west to the University of Southwestern Louisiana (now ULL) and, finally, at Nicholls.

In retrospect, I have spent a great portion of my life on college campuses and I have to say I have enjoyed the environment. Colleges are crazy places filled with crazy people, students, and every year it makes me a little crazier, which, given my personality, is a good thing.

Now some of the real good crazies are the schools’ mascots. LSU has Mike the Tiger, named after the Fighting Tigers, Louisiana military during the Civil War. Arizona has the Wildcat, which I assume is common to the desert, but I never saw a live one all the time I was out there, although I did spend a lot of time in the mountains drinking cheap wine.

Southern Illinois’ mascot is the Saluki, a large skinny dog known for being pets of the pharaohs in Egypt way back when.

The Salukis connection to Southern Illinois? The entire area is known as Little Egypt and Cairo, Ill., is nearby.

Southern Mississippi’s mascot is the Golden Eagle, and I have to say I never saw a golden eagle the whole time I was there, although I did spend a significant amount of time drinking cheap wine on my apartment balcony. Loyola University’s color is maroon but if that school has a mascot, I never discovered what it was, although I did spend a significant amount of time at Cooter Brown’s drinking beer, so I could have missed their mascot. ULL’s mascot is the Ragin’ Cajun, a fairly self-explanatory mascot choice. The Colonel here at Nicholls makes perfect sense but I would suggest a name change. More on that in a minute.

But the purpose of this column is not to tell you about the mascots at the schools I have been to. It’s to tell you about some really, really strange mascots. The University of California mascot, for example, has Sammy the Slug, a banana slug that apparently is common to the area. Go slugs! Kick butt.

A mascot we can appreciate down here in bayou country, and one I will suggest for Nicholls State to the university president, Stephen Hulbert, is the Fighting Okra.

Just because Delta State University in Cleveland, Miss., has beaten us to it is no reason not to commander that mascot. After all, we have our culinary masterpiece, gumbo, down here on the bayou and we could easily have a bowl of okra gumbo for a mascot. I’m just saying.

Evergreen State College’s mascot is the Geoduck, which is a strange-looking mollusk I can only guess is native to the area, wherever Evergreen State College is. Part of Geoduck’s theme song: “Siphon high, squirt it out, swivel all about, let it all hang out.” I’m not sure but I think it’s one of the songs from the movie, “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”

Without question the most interesting mascot in the country, and probably the world, comes from the Rhode Island School of Design. Its unofficial mascot is Scrotic.

I won’t describe Scrotic but let me say that the basketball team is known as the Balls, and their slogan: “When the heat is on, the Balls stick together.”

The big cheer for the hockey team, known as the Nads, is “Go Nads’ and the cheerleaders are known as the “Jockstraps” since they supports the Nads. And the yearly hockey game with rival Copper Union is known as the “Supportive Cup.”

And no, I’m not making this up.