An Open Letter to Douchebags

Fourth in an occasional series

Dear Chief Illiniwek Apologists:

I hear you're retiring the Chief today. It's about damn time. More specifically, it's about damn time you shut your Big Wampum' Cake Hole about your stupid mascot.

Here's the thing: I can understand tradition, and I can understand how it's fun to have the student section do that thing where they cross their arms like I Dream of Jeannie, and then rotate 90 degrees so that they're, what, offering up football (fine, or basketball) to the heavens? To the happy gridiron in the sky? What are you doing when you do that? Random quasi-Native American imagery is weird if it's that purposeless - you do realize that, right? It just makes everybody that isn't drunk* uncomfortable if some white guy from Bloomington, Pekin, Effingham, or (God forbid) Lake Forest is hopping around your fieldturf with no shoes on, especially if you refer to the dance in reverential tones. WHICH YOU DO - I'VE HEARD YOU DO IT, SO SHUT UP.

You exchanged the eagle feathers (classy!) on the headdress with painted turkey feathers (less classy!).

You also claim that the bit where Chief Mr. Illiniwek prances about doing his toe-touchy thing is part of "the most exciting X minutes in college athletics." This is a lie. The most exciting period of time in college athletics is when something goes horribly awry.^

As a visiting fan and rival, I started out giggling about Mr. Illiniwek and The Chief Dance and may have mocked it a little, with dancing and eye-rolls, and whatnot. But the more I saw, the more I became aware of The Awkward. The icon became divisive and more and more people became aware that it was okay to feel offended by it. Just give up the dance. Keep the logo - that's cool. The guy hasn't even been a mascot-mascot for... how long? He doesn't get in boxing matches with Willy or Herky or Brutus Buckeye. He doesn't get into head-spinning contest with Goldy the Gopher. He struts out for 5 minutes at halftime, makes everybody feel weird, and then goes away. You won't miss him. I swear.

Just shut up about him. It's tiresome.

Oh, and on the flip side? A school that I really like has a mascot that's a diminutive red-haired Irishman who jumps up and down like a monkey on the sidelines. Am I offended? No. But they also don't stop halftime so he can go out there and dance, while everybody acts like it's some sort of solemn ceremony. I don't know, maybe there's a double standard, but I'm tired of hearing your excuses for Mr. Illiniwek, you dumb yokels.

Send The Chief into retirement, give him his gold watch and rock-strewn areas of Arizona and the Dakotas.

But you get to keep the syphilis and the small-pox ridden blankets.

You have died of dysentery,

C-Dog

P.S. Incidentally, your current Mr. Illiniweks are really named Dan Maloney (Galesburg) and Logan Ponce (St. Charles). I have nothing specifically against Messrs. Maloney and Ponce, really. It was -I'm sure- a great honor to be chosen as the symbol of their university. Whatever. Not entirely their fault.

P.P.S. Wait, no, I take that back. In doing a little further research, it turns out they sued the NCAA and the U of I Board of Trustees to keep them from ditching the dance and turkey hat. I was going to try to avoid singling out douchebags, but you clowns, and your Matoon-based lawyer are douchebags nonpareil.

P.P.P.S. Thanks, as usual to Deadspin for the info, and for at least one joke that I stole from the commenters there.

*Here, I'm including drunk on non-traditional intoxicants like "school pride," "sub-par education," or "the Holy Spirit."

^I had so many examples of things going horribly awry that I like more than the Marching Illini + Mr. Illiniwek that it's going to have to be a new post.