The Stanford mascot

Many have heard my description of the Stanford mascot. Many have disbelieved it is as bad as I say it is. Now I’ll prove it! But before I do that, a little background:

See, Stanford’s team name is ‘The Cardinal’. Notice that there is no ‘s’ on the end of that name. It’s not ‘The Cardinals’ as in the bird. No, it’s ‘The Cardinal’ as in the color. You know, cardinal red. The color that people who vote in papal elections wear. Yeah, ‘The Cardinal’.

Amongst all the downsides of having a team name of ‘The Cardinal’ is the problem that their mascot can’t be a direct representation of their team name. What, are they going to run around with a red piece of paper? Or maybe they could steal a red Mitre (the hat) from a Cardinal of the Catholic Church. Faced with these options, the Stanford “faithful” decided, at the same time they picked the team name I might add, to go a different direction entirely. Stanford resides in the town of Palo Alto. Palo Alto means “tall tree” in Spanish. So the mascot for ‘The Cardinal’ is a tree.

And if that isn’t bad enought, it looks like this:
The Stanford Mascot

One Response to “The Stanford mascot”

  1. Ken's Brother Says:

    Ken,
    originally they were the Stanford Indians. But then in the 70’s when the wave of anti Indian mascots hit, Stanford was one of the first University’s to buckle to public opinion.
    Hence the hideous name Cardinal.
    lol which is slightly worse than the Red Storm, Orangemen and Ducks.