With all this mascot madness going on, I thought I'd take a minute to put in my two cents. First off, I'm not quite sure what was so terrible about the Warriors that they had to change it in the first place. According to the dictionary, a warrior is one who is engaged or experienced in battle. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that the same definition we use for a soldier? You never see anyone getting their panties in a bunch over that title, so what's so offensive about warrior?

The University of Illinois is the Fighting Illini. Notre Dame is the Fighting Irish, complete with a ridiculous leprechaun mascot. Yet you don't hear the Irish community crying out about injustice. Of course that might be because we've all had a few and are enjoying ourselves too much to write a formal complaint.

Compared to Warrior, Golden Eagle is straight up lame. But when we get caught up in this controversy, I feel we miss the bigger issue. The question we should be raising is how important is a mascot anyway? When people ask you where you go to school, I'm betting you don't respond, "I'm a Golden Eagle." We don't even yell it at basketball games. Instead we chant the ultimately clever "We are Marquette."

Are we all suffering from mass amnesia that we have to constantly repeat which school we represent? Can't you just imagine fans of the rival team sitting in the stands, listening to our cheer and thinking to themselves "No s–t." The only eagle presence at games is the mascot costume, which looks suspiciously more like a chicken. The Golden Eagle has absolutely no meaning for this university. It's not like they fly around or perch atop Raynor Library. It's true that we don't get many Warriors stalking the grounds either, but at least it has a historical tie to Milwaukee — which happens to be Algonquin for "the good land."

Perhaps we should look around campus for alternative mascot ideas. There's the Marquette Squirrel — which is dandy unless we want people to take us seriously — or the Marquette suburban white guy — which doesn't count for much on the originality meter (sorry boys) — or maybe the Marquette Homeless Person — which is decidedly politically incorrect, not to mention mean.

Okay, so much for local inspiration. Now it's all fun to joke about this, but some people are willing to put down big money to see this change happen. However if it does go back to the Warriors, it doesn't mean we will use a Native American image. This leaves me wondering what the mascot will look like. Will it be some nondescript guy in army fatigues running up and down the sidelines and getting in the way of the cheerleaders? That could remind people of the war in Iraq, but thankfully that matter isn't controversial in the least.

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