Who’s your mascot?

Earlier this year, “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” announced it would be rebranding the minor league baseball team the Erie Seawolves with a new mascot after doing a segment about how boring and unimaginative many minor league baseball mascots are. Oliver selected Erie from among 47 team submissions.

On Sunday, he announced that the team would be rebranded during a special game day this July as the Erie Moon Mammoths with their new mascot, Fuzz, a purple mammoth with moon boots and a space helmet. The name was inspired by the 1991 discovery of woolly mammoth remains by George Moon, an Erie County resident who found mammoth bones while scuba diving in Lake Pleasant, about eight miles south of Erie.

That got me thinking about a lot of our area school mascots and how many of them are just an animal and don’t relate to the school’s history or heritage. Is there something special about eagles in Ellicottville? I don’t recall ever seeing any Timberwolves in Little Valley or Cattaraugus. There are cardinals everywhere, so why does Randolph get to claim them? I think it’s time we set up our mascot game, or at least tell me why these ones were chosen.