Kerry Dougherty

Kerry Dougherty's column appears in the Hampton Roads section of The Virginian-Pilot every Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. Read it in print or in ePilot. You also can follow Kerry on Twitter: twitter.com/kerrydougherty

Category: Local News

■ 21 October 2009 | 9:10 AM

The Wrestling Wrens?

We all know the world is run by C students.

So, on behalf of everyone with a slightly embarrassing academic record, I offer this delicious nugget:

The College of William and Mary continues its desperate search for a mascot.

Yep, this elite institution, brimming over with brainiacs, can't find a suitable costumed character to lead cheers on the sidelines during football games.

C'mon, Tribe. All those smarts and still no cute or ironic mascot?

Just how brainy are W+M undergrads? Well, the Princeton Review rates William and Mary one of the most selective schools in the country. The college rating organization gave the Williamsburg university a selectivity rating of 98, just one notch below Harvard. The average high school GPA of entering freshmen, again according to PR, is 4.0.

In other words, the closest most of our underachieving offspring will come to William and Mary will be as part of a guided tour holding Williamsburg Patriot Passes.

The venerable school continues to be known as The Tribe, but it's safe to say the mascot will have absolutely no relation to anything Native American. After all, the last university president - who worshipped at the altar of political correctness - agreed to toss the little feathers that once graced William and Mary's logo.

School officials are expected to roll out the new mascot soon. The rumored frontrunner?

A wren.

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It is time...

Submitted by ed baskins on Sat, 10/24/2009 at 8:39 am.

That we get rid of negative stereotypes and this change will help. I think that it should be modernized. Maybe call them the W&M Casinos or the Gamers and have a big poker chip running around rousing the crowd!

Wren

Submitted by truthseeker on Wed, 10/21/2009 at 10:20 am.

Does the name of the architect come to mind? as in Christopher?

Wren

Submitted by Prairiedog on Fri, 10/23/2009 at 9:31 am.

No!

What is this, smug week?

Submitted by Shahinah on Wed, 10/21/2009 at 9:47 am.

Wow, you're really going for the smug this week, aren't you? First there was that ridiculously self-righteous piece on Sunday about "giving Halloween back to the kids" - if you want to give Halloween back to its "rightful owners", give it back to the Pagans for whom it's a religious holiday, otherwise mind your own business because there's no age limit on fun. Now we get "Well, W&M students may be smarter than me or my kids, but they can't come up with a cute mascot hur hur hur." As a proud William & Mary alumna (class of '90), I think the "lack" of a so-called cute mascot can be explained thus: We have better things to do. Heck, I don't even follow Tribe football, baseball, or any sport. My pride in my school stems from its long-standing record of academic achievement, not because it has a cute mascot or funny team name.