Halloween is this weekend, so we’re dressing up and counting down the craziest human mascots in college football.
5. Demon Deacon
When he’s on his motorcycle, Wake Forest’s Demon Deacon reminds us a little of Meatloaf’s scene in the Rocky Horror Picture Show. And what’s more Halloween than that?
He looks half like a Sesame Street character, half like a Batman villain.
The nickname came into being in 1923 and the Deacon was born 18 years later when a Wake graduate purchased a tux and a top hat and became the school’s first mascot.
4. Captain Cane
At first glance, we weren’t too sure exactly what Tulsa’s mascot Captain Cane is supposed to be.
He looks like a marshmallow. He looks like a beehive. But he also looks like a football player with a bunch of bandages on his head.
Actually, he’s a hurricane wearing football pads. Coulda fooled us.
The Hurricane mascot has matched Tulsa’s recent tradition of a stellar air-raid offense. The pass-happy team has built a reputation for causing some damage to opposing defenses.
It was recently announced that Captain Cane is due for a makeover, so we’ll be happy to see if the future Tulsa mascot looks less goofy.
3. The UC-Santa Cruz Banana Slug
Way back when UC-Santa Cruz joined the NCAA, the school’s chancellor set the school’s mascot as the “Sea Lions.” Students weren’t too happy and passed a referendum to change the official school mascot to the Banana Slug.
The chancellor refused to honor the referendum and instead left it up to a vote of the university’s athletes. And they chose Banana Slug.
Nowadays, UC-Santa Cruz has a laid-back banana slug with a Southern California attitude.
2. The Wichita State WuShock
In case you’re trying to figure out what this guy is — we were thinking he was a tree stump — he’s an anthropomorphic shock of wheat.
WuShock was the creation of students at Wichita State. Early football games at Wichita State were played on a wheat field, and football fans quickly became known as “Wheaties.”
In 1904 a student coined the university’s mascot name as the Wheatshockers, now shortened to the Shockers. WuShock was born in 1948, and he has undergone several redesigns to look tougher and meaner since then.
It worked. He scares the bejeebus out of us.
1. The Stanford Tree
The Tree is the “unofficial” mascot at Stanford. The school’s true mascot is the Cardinal. Not the bird — the color.
Obviously, that makes things a little tricky as far as figuring out a human mascot. So the band devised the tree in the mid-80s as an unofficial school mascot.
It’s easy to say that a Tree doesn’t exactly strike fear in opponents hearts. But you wouldn’t be entirely correct.
Fact is, the Tree has been on a bit of a mean streak lately. From Wikipedia:
During an ESPN-televised timeout during a February 1995 basketball game at Maples Pavilion, the Stanford Tree and Cal’s mascot Oski got into a fistfight in front of the Stanford student section. The Oski costume’s headpiece was forcefully removed by the Tree during the scuffle, an act of special significance because Cal has taken great pains to keep its Oski costume wearers’ identities secret since the 1940s.
A spate of recent troubles has brought the Tree even more notoriety in college-sports circles. In February 2006, then-Tree Erin Lashnits was suspended until the end of her term as the Tree after her blood-alcohol level was found to be 0.157 (almost twice the legal driving limit in California) during a men’s basketball game between Stanford and Cal. UC Berkeley police observed her drinking from a flask during the game and cited her for public drunkenness after she failed a breathalyzer test.
Then, on March 20, 2006, replacement-Tree Tommy Leep was ejected during the Stanford women’s basketball team’s NCAA tournament game against Florida State University for “dancing in an undesignated area,” following an earlier scuffle with tournament security, from whom he had attempted to escape by hurling himself across the basketball court on a rolling chair. The Stanford Athletic Department then banned him from performing for the rest of the NCAA tournament.
Honorable Mention: The Evergreen Geoduck (crazy mascot, no football program).
Posted by Team Express 
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