Why Your Mascot Sucks: Weber State

Next up in NCAA Women’s Volleyball mascotory, is the Weber State University Wildcats.

Following a four set victory over Bowling Green State in the opening round of the tournament, the Wildcats captured the school’s first ever tournament win and is now rewarded with a match up with the overall No. 1 seed, your Wisconsin Badgers.

Origins

Weber State has been known as the Wildcats since the 1920s when the name stuck after a journalist said that the football team was “as scrappy as a bunch of wildcats.” Prior to the appearance in the newspaper, the only other anecdotal reference of wildcat came from some ol’ fashioned name calling...

Wallace Morris, a former football player at WSU in the 1920s, told his children that at practice one day another player said that Morris played like a pussycat. Before he could tell that player that he himself was rubber and that he was glue, another player shouted that Morris was not a pussycat, he’s a wildcat.

Morris was then known as Wildcat Morris. While Morris had his cool new nickname, born out of bullying, the athletic teams were still being referred to Weberites, that is until they were called Wildcats in the news article.

While the new moniker was accepted by the football team, the school President Aaron Tracy was not a fan. Tracy, being a man of high morals, didn’t think the students should be likened to a bunch of wildcats and thought that it was demeaning. He wanted them to be something more noble, like a lion.

Oh and a lynx is technically a wildcat and lynx are an imposing creature and they are one of the most bad ass predators - they can take out a deer!

However, Tracy’s fragility lost in the end and the school remained the Wildcats.

Students even kept a live Wildcat to display during football games. The wildcat, being a wild animal and all, clearly was unhappy being kept in a cage and paraded around bit a cheerleader on the nose, thus ending its career as a mascot.

I am in a state of shock that a wild animal would bite someone...

Appearance

Waldo the Wildcat, Weber State’s mascot is well, you guess it...a wildcat.

The attention to detail in the costume is quite impressive and carries a strong resemblance to a lynx. The use of stripes and varying fur colors, not to mention the furriness of the mascot, truly make him look like a real live wildcat.

While I feel that some school try to hard as they evolve their mascots (I’m talking about you Baylor), WSU has done a great job with Waldo’s evolution and he has come a long way since earlier versions of the costume.

If you think that this earlier version was less than impressive, wait until you see the last version of the mascot, used before the current one....

WHAT THE HELL IS THAT ABOMINATION?!?!

Thankfully someone made the decision to give Waldo an extreme makeover - mascot edition, I would never have wanted to find him before.

And I am not the only one that is impressed with the current design of the mascot, as Waldo has captured three National Mascot Championships at the NCA and NDA Collegiate Cheer and Dance Championships. Waldo won most recently in 2019, with a score of 96.78, edging out Missouri, North Texas, Virginia Tech, Iowa State, Georgia Tech, North Carolina and others.

Waldo scored high marks across the board in the competition, posting the following scores:

Characterization: 9.47

Creativity: 9.77

Crowd Leading: 9.67

Dance: 9.60

Prop Des/Effect: 9.87

Overall Impression: 9.70

That Crowd Leading category is tough, could you image moving your arms in an upward motion (to tell the crowd to get up) so well, that you score a 9.67? Obviously, this competition has never heard of Mr. Buckingham U. Badger...

Overall, Waldo is an impressive mascot and sucks very little, but his previous form is the suckiest of all the sucks that have ever sucked.