Golden Chickens Come to Roost

My day was actually going quite well until around three o’clock when I decided to drop by the Alumni Union to pick up my U-Pass. As I was in search of the Union Station (distribution services of the U-Pass had been moved upstairs temporarily but had since been moved back down to the Union Station at the time I visited), I stumbled upon one of the ballrooms in which a representative from the PR firm behind the ‘Golden Chicken’ mascot issue at Marquette University was sitting with a laptop computer in front of him and concept art of the mascot choices lining the desk.

As I walked in to inspect the ‘new’ mascot designs up close (not within the realm of a computer screen for a chance), the man took notice of me and asked as to my thoughts of the mascot designs. I replied, politely yet firmly, that I thought the entire thing was a joke. He inquired as to what I meant by this sentiment. I assured him that I was not one to quickly fall for conspiracy theories but I could no longer ignore the fact that the university administration was deliberately withholding specific information and conducting matters behind the backs of students and alumni in order to manipulate the results of surveys and polls and receive the desired result they wanted, which was to stay with the Golden Eagles nickname and demolish any aspirations whatsoever of resurrecting ‘Warriors’ on this campus.

He assured me that the university administration was going above and beyond in taking student input into consideration. I of course rolled my eyes in disbelief when he said this. With that mind I inquired as to whether any of the mascot designs currently on display were submitted either by students or alumni of the university with which he replied with a no. Then I asked if the administration would be accepting submissions to the revision of the Golden Eagle mascot with which he again he replied with a no and said simply they were just accepting comments and opinions about the designs. He assured me that surveys had been conducted with students from the university since April and that indeed our voices were being heard but I still objected.

I notified him that I and a number of my fellow MU peers were on top of every single bit of news leaking out about the nickname/mascot issue and we had never heard of any such survey taking place publicly, nor were we ever asked to participate in such said survey. I asked how many students had taken this survey which he replied that roughly one-hundred had participated in the survey program they had conducted on campus.

I will openly admit right here and now that I am no math wizard or anything like that but even I can determine that one-hundred out of ten-thousand students, not to mention the untold number of alumni who I suspect would enjoy having a say in all of this as much as we would, comes out to less then one percent of the student body represented. Yeah, sounds like their really listening to what students have to say here at Marquette University.

I am honestly so close to giving this up. I am with my fellow Marquette University peers when I say that I just want the basketball season to start, this in spite of the fact that we are likely to be creamed brutally in our inaugural season in the Big East Conference. Yes, I will continue supporting our athletic teams. It is not their fault that the administration screwed up royally. I however will never accept the ‘Golden Chicken’ as our official mascot. I will never adorn myself or my place of resident with the depravity of that unsacred logo or object. We are and forever will be Warriors!