One Ugly Tree

California may have a lot of strong impressive trees, but the Stanford Cardinal mascot is not one of them. A state known for its beautiful, slender, sky-scraping redwoods and massive, daunting sequoias, one would think its best university would have a better tree representative. Nonetheless, Stanford University chooses to unite behind this ridiculous mascot:

Source: Kramer's Site
http://kramer-walker.tripod.com/index.html

Today's basketball action featured the #3 Stanford Cardinal against the new hometown, #2 Texas Longhorns. Even though the Cardinal suffered a 20-point drubbing by the Horns, the camera always seemed to be pointed at this ridiculous-looking, floppy, dancing tree going into commercial breaks. Do fans actually unite behind this absurd, wobbling faux plant?

One would think after all these years of watching sports I would have seen this eye sore before, but this was actually a first. I can see why. Stanford probably wants to keep this unfortunate representative a secret so as not to deter their brilliant future applicants.

Also, what's up with Stanford being called the Cardinal? Why does this school have to be so weird that they can't pick a normal team name? I didn't even know that Cardinal was the color of red (and not the bird) until about age 18. Of course, up until that time my question was, why can't they be plural like everyone else?

In other news, Davidson clobbered #3 Wisconsin by 17. They now march on to the Elite 8 to play the winner of #1 Kansas-#12 Villanova. Kansas was up by 10 "at press time."