Face the State

Face The State Staff Report

Efforts to resuscitate the University of Denver's retired mascot were quashed earlier this week and while DU Chancellor Robert Coombe says "Boone the Pioneer" was axed because he was a "divisive rather than a unifying influence on our community," commercial marketing interests may have also played a role.

BooneUniv. of Denver

Boone, a cartoon caricature created by Walt Disney, was drawn to represent a typical trapper or explorer from the late 19th Century, complete with a coonskin hat and scruffy beard. He was the mascot for DU Pioneer sports teams for more than three decades, leading up to his retirement in 1999.

In a letter sent to students and alumni Monday, Coombe said "the old Boone figure is one that does not reflect the broad diversity of the DU community and is not an image that many of today's women, persons of color, international students and faculty, and others can easily relate to as defining the pioneering spirit."

DU spokesman Jim Berscheidt says part of the reason Boone was replaced by "Ruckus the red-tailed Hawk" in 1999 was because there were many complaints that the mascot was inappropriate and also simply that Boone "was not a modern character." A 2007 article published in the DU Clarion, the school's official newspaper, said the red-tailed hawk "used to make its home on the prairie and the in the foothills during the pioneer era." The hawk also plays a significant role in American Indian culture, where its feathers are considered sacred by many tribes.

The campaign to bring Boone back was spearheaded by two DU graduates, Damien Goddard and Tom Douglis, who wanted to improve school spirit and school traditions. Goddard said they were compelled to revive Boone after hockey goaltender Peter Mannino put an image of the mascot on his helmet in October 2005. He said Mannino put Boone on his helmet due to the important role history plays for the DU hockey program. The move sparked a grassroots campaign to bring Boone back.

The response was so great that DU Athletic Director Peg Bradley-Doppes joined the effort and helped establish a committee to look into the issue. It was comprised of school administrators, faculty, students and alumni who all largely favored bringing Boone back. However, according to Goddard, members of the Faculty of Color Association joined the committee and protested the use of Boone because he represented pioneers who committed genocide on American Indians.

Goddard said Coombe made a serious judgment error when he sent out the letter explaining how Boone was axed. "The chancellor made a snap decision which angered alumni and stirred up a hornet's nest. The letter was poorly conceived." Face The State's calls to the Faculty of Color Association went unreturned.

Goddard said he suspected Boone also was a victim of marketing strategy. He said he thought then-Chancellor and Denver business mogul Dan Ritchie had Boone in his crosshairs when he began redeveloping DU's campus in the mid-90s.

"I think Ritchie wanted to create a 'Harvard of the West' with beautiful buildings and coat and tie events," Goddard said. "And Boone was probably too tacky or too casual for him."

Berscheidt said Boone's image as a early settler was a definitely a factor in denying his resurrection.

"[Boone] doesn't reflect the DU of today and to be honest it's a little bit offensive," Berscheidt said.

Berscheidt also conceded that marketing was a factor. In the late-1990s, as DU was undergoing its Richie-led facelift, school officials decided a mascot designed by the same company that designed the mascots for the Colorado Avalanche and the Denver Nuggets better suited the Pioneers' new image.

Berscheidt pointed out that despite the image overhaul, DU sports teams are still called the Pioneers. He also stressed the word should be applied broadly, such as to pioneers in education and science.

"The word pioneer has more than one meaning, it doesn't just refer back to our early settlers," Berscheidt said.

Dr. E. Christian Kopff, associate director of the Honors program at the University of Colorado at Boulder said the pioneering spirit is exactly what the old mascot represented. To Kopff, Boone symbolizes the explorers and pioneers who helped shape the enterprising spirit of America at a time when the country was still trying to find its place in the world.

"[Boone] the Pioneer represented people who were not afraid to leave their normal, urban lives and go exploring," Kopff said. "These early settlers developed the idea that Americans are not afraid to explore."

But Kopff says the those early settlers of the American West represent a part of the past and traditions that DU should not quickly dismiss, contending that western pioneers paved the way into the wild frontier, and still have a significant impact on how Americans view themselves today.

"Even though the frontier in the traditional sense is gone, that pioneering spirit is part of what makes us Americans," said Kopff. "Feeling that we can get up and do something new is an important part of [who we are]."

DU's insistence on nixing the pioneer image came as a surprise to many involved in school sports across the state.

Kevin Shaffer, editor and publisher of Colorado Preps Network in Ft. Morgan, says the only names changes to sports mascots he has heard of are when schools use euphemisms for American Indians as mascots. He pointed to several high school teams that have not shed their Indian monikers, such as the La Veta Redskins and the Lamar Savages.

Shaffer also said there is fine line about what can construed as offensive. While he said he understood how people could find names like Redskins and Savages offensive, he wondered if there are people who would take offense to names like Warriors or Indians.

Bert Borgmann, assistant commissioner of the Colorado High School Activities Association, the statewide governing body for high school sports, said one school was able to cooperate with the American Indian community to respectfully maintain the "Warrior" as its school mascot. Every year a shaman from the Arapaho Tribal Nation of Wind River, Wyoming, blesses the fields and sports facilities at Arapahoe High School in Centennial. The tribe also endorses the use of the Warrior logo, which is an Indian chief complete with feather headdress and face paint.

Borgmann said in his experience, mascot name changes are almost always divisive. He said Arvada High School's mascot name change from Redskins to Reds is still controversial today, even though the change was made 15 years ago. "You'll still see fans today with t-shirts that say I'm a Redskin, not a Red," Borgman said. Some Arvada residents mock the new label, saying it suggests that the new mascot represents an endorsement of communism.