Disclaimer: I do not go to Amherst. I’m a senior at Bowdoin. I have barely ever been to Amherst before, and I have not talked often to Amherst partisans about their mascot. My familiarity with the Amherst community is no better than that of any other NESCAC student. So my opinions carry no weight at all.
In case you missed the news, on Tuesday the Board of Trustees for Amherst College officially announced that the college has chosen “not to employ this reference in its official communications, its messaging and its symbolism (including in the name of the Inn, the only place on the campus where the Lord Jeffery name officially appears).” The decision is already somewhat symbolic. The athletic department in its game recaps and previews has not referred to Amherst teams as the Lord Jeffs recently, and the Lord Jeffs is already an unofficial mascot.
“Amherst College finds itself in a position where a mascot — which, when you think about it, has only one real job, which is to unify — is driving people apart because of what it symbolizes to many in our community,” wrote Cullen Murphy, the chairman of the board. – New York Times
Weeding into the arguments for and against getting rid of the mascot is obviously now a completely academic one. Suffice it to say that the move is one completely supported here. I can’t say that Nothing But NESCAC has been good about avoiding using the name Lord Jeffs, like how many news organizations no longer refer to the NFL team in Washington DC by their formal name. However, from now on we will try our best not to refer to Amherst as the Lord Jeffs.
That leaves the obvious question of what to call Amherst now. Mascots are fun, and as a writer, they give valuable diversity for naming teams. Mascot names should also generally be harmless.
Currently, the frontrunner for the new mascot is the Moose. The simple reason is that in 2014 when the debate about Lord Jeff was taking place on campus, a moose wandered across campus. So Amherst teams would become the Moose, or the Purple Moose if Amherst wanted to do what they always do and copy Williams who have as their secondary mascot the Purple Cows. The official name for Williams’ teams is the Ephs, in honor of Colonel Ephraim Williams who gave the original money for the school.
With all due respect to every moose out there, I think that Amherst can do better. For one, moose are a boring animal. They are big and all, but they move slowly. Secondly, there is no plural of moose. Differentiating between the singular and plural moose is impossible.
I agree that the new mascot should be some animal not quite in the mainstream. The best NESCAC mascots are ones like the Camels and Polar Bears that are a little off the beaten path for normal mascots (fun fact: Panther is not actually its own species). With that being said, Amherst should resist the urge to pick a mascot that also starts with an A; being the Amherst Aardvarks or Amherst Anteaters is sophomoric.
So, without further ado, my personal nominee for the Amherst mascot is the Dorsets.
What is that, you ask? A Dorset is a breed of sheep that according to Wikipedia, “are all white sheep and medium size having good body length and muscle conformation to produce a desirable carcass.” Amherst would actually NOT be the first college in America to have the Dorsets as their mascot. That would actually be the University of North Carolina. However, UNC is always called the Tar Heels in popular culture, and the general public does not consider them the Dorsets at all. The Amherst Dorsets might feel like a weird thing right now, but the Trinity Bantams is also a somewhat peculiar name. The Bantams, a type of rooster, is in my opinion, one of the best NESCAC mascots. Having to explain your mascot shouldn’t be seen as a negative, but rather a positive because explanation involves some of the basic tenets of a liberal arts education.
Having Amherst be the Dorsets is nice because it then means both Amherst’s and Williams’ mascot are domesticated animals. The battle of the sheep vs. the cows would be welcome fodder between the two rivals.
There are many other ideas floating around for the new mascot, most of them better than this one. Over on d3boards.com, Purple Reign is already emerging as a favorite. Personally, I think that would be a pretty awesome name, too.
