The Good, the Bad, the Ugly: West Division Mascots

As we navigate our way through the endless Mountain West offseason, I have been forced to tackle some interesting subjects on “The Good, the Bad, the Ugly.” This week will be no different, as I will be analyzing the mascots of the Mountain West. Boy, I hope we get news on when the football season is going to start. Let’s take a look at the good, bad, and ugly mascots of the West Division. This week they are listed in order of my favorite mascots.

The Good:

The Aztec Warrior of San Diego State (tie)

A symbol of strength that accurately represents the history of Mexico. What a great symbol for the school. The beginning of football games are great with the warrior running to midfield. San Diego State does a great job representing the history of the Aztecs even down to their uniforms.

The Rainbow Warrior of Hawaii (tie)

This is such a cool mascot, and I love the retro logos of the University of Hawaii. Really the reasons that they have such a great mascot are the same reasons that San Diego State has such a great mascot. The Rainbow was incorporated after winning a game in the 1920’s and it became a symbol of good luck for the university. Like SDSU, Hawaii does a great job incorporating this history of the area into their athletic programs.

Hey Reb! of UNLV

Hey Reb! has fallen under some scrutiny recently. Originally, UNLV had a wolf as their mascot since the school used to be tied with Nevada-Reno. Hey Reb! is a cool looking mascot that is supposed to represent the ruggedness of the western frontiersman. Read about the history of the mascot here.

The Bad:

The Wolf(pack) of Nevada

In 2016, Nevada had their first wolf sighting since 1922. According to my research, wolves had always been sparse because of the arid climate. In other words, wolves are not a major part of Nevada’s history. Why the wolf was chosen, I don’t know. Seems like the school could have gone a different route. UNLV definitely has Nevada beat here.

The Spartan of San Jose State

Maybe it is the fact that I was a history major, but I don’t understand why any school in the United States would have a Spartan as a mascot. I realize that it doesn’t necessarily mean they are from Sparta; it can also mean great courage. But come on, anybody that has ever taken a world history class associates Spartans with the people of Sparta. San Jose is nearly 7,000 miles away.

The Bulldog of Fresno State

I don’t really mind the Bulldog mascot and it is cool that they can easily have a live representative of their university. But the Bulldog is the most common mascot in the United States and their is nothing really unique about it. When you look at the logos of various Bulldog logos, they all tend to look the same.

That’s it for this edition of “The Good, the Bad, the Ugly.” Hopefully some good news comes down from the conference and we can start previewing the upcoming season!