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Oh Honey, No…a Bucky’s 5th Quarter Fashion Blog: Marquette University

And a bonus Why Your Mascot Sucks!

Tonight, the Wisconsin Badgers will be squaring off against in-state rival Marquette. What is special about this match-up is that Marquette will be wearing NEW uniforms, which were just introduced for the 2020-21 season.

Marquette is finally moving away from these monstrosities...

Shudders...

I am all for mixing things up with your uniforms, but to have the school name under the player’s number? Why?!? Why would you do that?

Hopefully the new knits will be a pallet cleanser...

As a reminder, we will be rating the opposing threads on a scale of oh honey, no, to YAASS QUEEN.

Oh honey, no: Obviously, this is the worst rating. If I must explain this to you, you’re probably wearing socks with sandals right now, or a brown belt with black pants, either way, oh honey, no.

Ewww: Nice try, but no.

Werk it: You brought it.

YAASS QUEEN: Best of the best. Your proverbial milkshake brings all the proverbial boys to the yard.

School: Marquette University

Mascot: Golden Eagle

Color Scheme: Blue and Gold

Official Brand Sponsor: Jordan Brand

Home uniform:

Marquette’s new home uniforms are white with light blue and gold accents at the top of the uniform, as well as at the bottom of the shorts. The jersey features dark blue edging, as well as numbers and letters, which appear to be in Gothic-style text.

The shorts feature the ‘MU’ logo on the side of one of the legs.

These are some fresh knits, the text is far-from what you would normally see on a uniform and I think that adds to their aesthetic appeal. They are certainly a far cry from your standard block lettering.

I would rate these on par with Marquette’s uniforms from the late 2000’s, which were some of my favorite basketball uniforms.

Uniform score:

YAASS QUEEN

Away uniform:

As you can imagine, their away uniforms are very similar to the home uniforms. They still feature the light blue and gold accents, with the gold numbers and letters in the same Gothic-style text. However, the uniform does not have any edging, like the home uniform has.

The navy road uniforms are alright, not quite as dynamic as the home whites, but still passable.

Away uniform score:

Werk it

Alternate uniforms:

That’s right, I said uniforms, plural. This is the first basketball opponent Wisconsin has faced that has a lot of uniform options. And in this day and age, it doesn’t hurt to have a few options in your closet.

Recently Marquette wore some special uniforms to support Nike’s initiative during Native American Heritage Month.

The uniforms are the same as the home and away uniforms, but they are a teal-ish light blue color. I like that they are supporting Native American Heritage, but I am not a fan of this look. The color is...too much.

Their second alternate uniform is gold and is absolute fire.

The uniform is essentially their home uniform, but in gold instead of white. This is the perfect alternate uniform in my opinion. It can be worn both as an away uniform as it contrasts a white uniform and could easily be worn as home as well, as it would contrast most visiting team’s darker road uniforms.

SO MANY OPTIONS!!!

The uniform also features ‘AL’ on the belt of the shorts, honoring the late Al McGuire. I am guessing this is on all of the updated uniforms, but I have not been able to confirm using the interwebs.

Alternate uniform score:

Teal: Ewww

Gold: YAASS Queen

Why Your Mascot Sucks

Origins

While Marquette is the Golden Eagles, this has not always been the school mascot. For nearly 40 years, Marquette went by the Warriors after going by a slew of other names - Blue and Gold, The Hilltoppers, The Golden Avalanche, The Golden Showers...

OK, that last one was a lie, but the first three were legit.

When in 1954, the school changed its nickname to the Warriors, due to the fact that there was a Native American on the official seal of the university and Rev. Jacques Marquette had a penchant for hiring Native Americans as guides, teachers and counselors.

Marquette was also one of many sports teams in Milwaukee, that had names associated with Native Americans - Milwaukee Hawks, Milwaukee Chiefs and the Milwaukee Braves.

However, the Hawks moved to St Louis in 1955, the Chiefs soon after ceased to exist and the Braves moved to Atlanta in 1965.

This left the Warriors alone in Milwaukee.

However, as time wore on, more and more people took issue with the name and the school responded to concerns from American Indians and dropped the name in 1993 and became the Golden Eagles.

The nickname would last for about 11 years until 2004, when the student body tried to bring back the Warriors nickname. A survey was sent out around campus and a majority of the students were in favor of returning to the prior nickname, but the university President and the board of trustees rejected the move.

Even though they agreed to reject the move back to the Warriors, in a strange turn of events, they also decided to ax the Golden Eagle as well leaving the school nicknameless until they approved an interesting (and when I say “interesting,” I mean “shitty”) replacement...the Golds.

That’s right, the Golds.

The decision was more of a trust-ocracy instead of a democracy, as the board of trustees made the decision without asking for any input from the alumni or current students. It’s almost like they wanted to see the downfall of democracy...it didn’t work then and it doesn’t appear to be working now...

Anyway, as you probably guessed, the campus co-eds weren’t having it and the decision set off an on-campus protest and a bunch of hate mail.

The trustees then held an emergency meeting and asked the students to vote on what the new mascot would be and wouldn’t you guess it, the ‘Golden Eagles’ was the triumphant winner of the vote, with the Hilltoppers coming in second.

Warriors was not allowed on the ballot.

I wonder how much money this cost Marquette...all that hullabaloo for nothing.

A bad makeover

The current mascot, received a makeover in 2018.

While they say it’s ‘new and improved,’ I don’t see the improvement over the previous design.

The previous design just looked better. The new one looks like an eagle who was stung by a bee.

The beak got shorter, the wings got shorter, it got a slimmer frame. I feel like you would want your eagle mascot to the opposite of those things, but what do I know? I only write about this stuff for a living...well second living...

Anyway, the new one just looks... just not good.

I am just glad that the mascot does not have teeth. It really ruffles my feathers when schools do not take ornithological features into consideration when designing bird mascots. Adding teeth to a bird mascot is one of the many pitfalls of mascot design.

Great, now I’m all worked up.

Gettin Iggy wit’ it

Earlier this year, Marquette announced that the Golden Eagle would now be known as ‘Iggy.’ Iggy, coming from St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Society for Jesus.

With the name change, the only change that will be occurring with the mascot is that ‘Iggy’ will now be added to the back of the jersey that the mascot wears to an athletic competition.