I’d like to take a moment and say goodbye to a Caped Crusader.  No, not the Caped Crusader, but rather the mascot at my alma mater Susquehanna University.

The official mascot is the Crusaders, but beginning with my freshman year the costumed being running around at sporting events has been a tiger with a cape.  Here he is in a throwback photo:

Fun fact: That 2001 picture is from the day I moved in, taken in front of my freshman dorm.  Good times.

The tiger came as a way to move away from the image of a knight, which, as Director of Student Activities Brent Papson explains in this story in the school paper, is not the type of Crusader the university represents:

“We were nicknamed the ‘little crusaders’ for how well we performed, despite not being professional, and it’s considered something to be proud of. That’s why our alumni base and the university have chosen to hold on to the name. What we’re embracing is not the historical concept of the Crusader.”

In practice, the tiger was kind of lame and hard to explain.  He’s being replaced this school year by a squirrel, which I could not endorse more strongly.  You can’t go three feet without encountering a squirrel on campus, and seeing one perched on a trash can eating an ice cream cone is always entertaining.  I also kind of want to see a dancing squirrel.

How will alums react?  My class has been preparing for this since we graduated.  Before we left campus, each of us was given a little metal acorn as a “symbol of life” and the idea of going out and sprouting as people in this world:

I wonder how many of my classmates still have theirs.  Or for that matter, who still has one of these:

For the record, a squirrel did not gnaw on it; that’s four years of wear and tear.