Years ago, Dan Snyder did an interview where he claimed he would never change the mascot for the Washington Redskins regardless of how outdated and offensive the name was. In all honesty, there wasn’t even a time when the name wasn’t offensive. You wouldn’t call a team the “Whiteskins,” would you? No, that would be terrible. In recent days, the team has announced that they are officially dropping the name effective immediately and will unveil a new name before the upcoming NFL season. This makes us wonder about other team mascots that, while not necessarily being offensive, are just pretty strange. Check out our top 10 favorite weird mascots below.
Photo: Drew Angerer / Staff (Getty Images)
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10 Strange Mascots
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Banana Slug (UC Santa Cruz)
UC Santa Cruz has one of the strangest mascots ever. They’re called “The Banana Slugs” and their mascot is exactly what you expect it to be. It’s a big, yellow slug with antennae.
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Gritty (Philadelphia Flyers)
Gritty is new on the scene and totally ready to haunt your nightmares. He’s an orange, furry menace with cold dead eyes that looks more likely to star in a horror movie than be anywhere near a sporting event.
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Big Red (Western Kentucky University)
Western Kentucky University teams are called “the hill toppers.” While we don’t know what a hill topper is, we do know the amorphous blob referred to as “Big Red” looks like a menacing, crimson Grimace.
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Billiken (St. Louis University)
What is a Billiken? A quick Google search reveals that it’s a charm doll created by a Kansas City art teacher. That still doesn’t explain why St. Louis University decided that their mascot should look like some terrifying version of Jack Frost mixed with a bat.
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Dinger (Colorado Rockies)
Dinger is a triceratops. Why the Rockies have a dinosaur mascot, we’ll never know. He looks like he stepped off the set of Barney and Friends and we just wish he’d go back.
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Philly Phanatic (Philadelphia Phillies)
The Philly Phanatic has been around forever and is just as annoying and strange as ever. Apparently, he’s some kind of flightless bird with a kazoo for a mouth. Either way, he’s terrible.
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Raymond (Tampa Bay Rays)
Honestly, we feel really bad for Raymond. He’s named for the ray, but he definitely doesn’t spend any time in the ocean. His face looks like three blue mops tied together by pure evil and children’s tears.
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Stanford Tree (Stanford University)
Stanford University’s mascot is literally a tree. And they obvious did spare expense when they created the costume as it looks like something our mom whipped together at the last minute when we were 10 because we didn’t want to wear the same cowboy costume from last year for Halloween.
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Stuff the Magic Dragon (Orlando Magic)
The Orlando Magic are named for the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World. Obviously, a mascot that was a giant castle wouldn’t really make any sense. Instead, they opted for an over-the-top dragon that looks more like an imaginary friend than a mascot.
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Super Frog (TCU)
The teams at TCU are referred to as the “Horned Frogs” and their mascot is an abomination called "Super Frog." It looks like a poorly designed triceratops.
