Author: Alex Zeldin
In my time at Occidental College I have witnessed school pride plummet. The amount of Occidental apparel worn in the quad has dwindled down to the athletes and those who bought an Occidental t-shirt or sweater upon arrival and haven’t purchased anything since. Instead of praising the school, students complain about Residential Education and Housing Services, the price of food at the marketplace and how the Internet is down for maintenance every 4.3 seconds. By re-branding the athletic department, school spirit could be increased drastically. While many schools use their athletics department as a way to boost pride, the name Occidental Tigers simply doesn’t cut it and is a reflection of how poor the school is at advertising the athletic department and creating an exciting brand.
As a transfer from the University of Miami, I know first hand how a good football team can have an influence on school’s pride. Shirts displaying the school’s athletic logo (not name, logo) are more commonplace there than appliances are at Sears. If the team won, people were happy for a week. If the team lost, people were bummed for an hour, then got over it an eagerly awaited the next week’s game. Either way it was great to be a Miami Hurricane.
While any given Occidental sport is not what football is to Miami or basketball is to Duke, Division III sports can still have a positive impact on a school’s pride. When Calvin College plays Hope College in basketball, those Western Michigan gyms are packed with students, faculty and alumni. That day, everyone is rooting for their team and by extension their school. There is no reasons this cannot be the case at Occidental.
Occidental Athletics, however, do not carry the same weight. At halftime, one can see an exodus of fans leave the football stadium regardless of how close the game is. Last year, when Occidental played Whittier, we scored a touchdown at the last minute to force overtime. Still, many fans left the stadium. This is because when Occidental students go to a football game, it is to see their friends and not to support the team.
One of the fundamental problems with the college is the mascot “Tigers.” It is a fact that the name, color scheme and font were taken directly from Princeton University. Tigers is generic, boring, uncreative and in no way shape or form is true to anything about Los Angeles or our campus.
While this next idea may seem ridiculous and far-fetched, it could have a profound impact on school pride: Replace the nickname “Tigers” with “Peacocks.” The legendary Occidental Peacock is a staple of Oxy’s campus. At odd hours of the night, students can hear the peacock’s cry from the top of Mt. Fiji. If we were to adopt this as the mascot, our team name would be incredibly unique rather than be shared with that of Louisiana State University, Auburn, Clemson, Missouri and Memphis, among others. It would have a meaning true to Occidental. And if that isn’t enough, who wouldn’t be proud to be a Cock?
While that last sentence may have seemed tongue-in-cheek, think for a second what the colloquial nickname “Cocks” could do for the school. For starters, the college’s clothing sales would soar through the roof. If shirts in the bookstore featured a cartoon peacock with the slogan “Fear the Cock” on it, the shirts would instantly become a stable of Occidental’s campus. Instead of going to the games and chatting with friends while we score a winning basket, people could instead scream, “Go Cocks!” and rally behind the team. And to those who would take offense, lighten up. This is a liberal arts college. The student body should be attending classes in ponchos, dancing naked doing chalk art in the quad and using the showers once a week. Even the University of South Carolina, located in one of the most conservative states on the union, is proud of their Gamecock name and the puns that go with it.
There would be an economic cost involved, but it would be marginal. There is no reason to change the color scheme, so the black and orange could still cover the campus. Most teams replace their jerseys every year and few if any say Tigers on it. The biggest concern would be selling off the rest of the clothing in the bookstore with Tiger logos on it and potentially dealing with unhappy alumni donors.
These concerns however are short-sighted. With a cool new logo and slogans playing up the Cocks, the increased revenue would make up for the unsold Tiger shirts. Also, if school pride continues to plummet, new alumni won’t give to the school at the rate old alumni did. For the long long term, the pride that would go with being a Peacock would lead to a potential increase in donations down the road.
School pride is at an all time low. A change to the Peacocks would not only help the schools’ athletic teams, but would by extension give students another reason to be proud of Occidental and help the college embrace what it means to be a liberal arts college and not a stuck-up university.
Alex Zeldin is a junior AHVA major. He can be reached at zeldin@oxy.edu.
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