Yesterday the DU Mascot Steering Committee released their mascot survey to approximately 75,000 recipients to receive feedback on three final potential mascots.

The mascots included are an elk, a jackalope and finally a mountaineer. The images were also released with personal stories about the characters.

Head of the Mascot Steering Committee Will Guy said the three were created through repeated testing and conceptualizing, and were found to be the most popular images from an initially much longer list.

“I think people are really connecting with the story of the elk, the human aspect of the mountain explorer and the quirkiness of the jackalope,” said Guy.

The survey asks for respondents to rank the potential mascots based on 20 “dimensions” created by the committee. It also asks students to assign a value of 0-100 for each image.

Responses from the survey will be read by the committee, which will then assess the results to determine if any changes are needed before presenting final concepts to the Board of Trustees. According to Guy, the survey was sent to DU students, alumni, faculty, staff and season ticket holders.

“The two animals were awful. I hated them. In no way do they represent DU or the Pioneer spirit as they (the committee) were claiming they do,” said junior Nick Tremaroli. “Overall I was quite disappointed with the images they came up with,”

Tremaroli said he found the ‘mountain man’ to be the closest representation of the university and the ‘Pioneers.’

“I was actually kind of pleased with that one – if we can’t have Boone it’s the best one,” he said.  “If we have to have a new mascot it has to be a person.”

Development of the mascots has taken place since the formation of the Steering Committee in February. The committee, which includes 76 members, hosts representatives from student sectors on campus, alumni and the Colorado Woman’s College. Guy said this helped to develop mascots they hope will receive support across many sectors.

“I’m really hoping that we see one concept emerge from this – that we can say to the board ‘this is what our community has felt represents DU best,’” said Guy.

Guy said the process involved lots of concept testing and adjustments, both to create the final mascot visages and their individual stories. The committee has held focus groups throughout the past few months to narrow down exactly what the images would look like.

“We’ve been able to compromise a lot, which is good,” said Guy. “It’s really been a game of revising a lot.”

The mascot controversy has continued since February, when USG voted to ban using student activity fund money to support Boone’s visage. Many students have continued to support Boone, who was officially removed as mascot in 1998, while others have embraced the idea of a new mascot.

“Everyone is mad at the university for how they’ve handled this,” said Tremaroli. “That’s really the issue here more than the mascot itself. I’ve lost a lot of faith in University of Denver throughout this whole process.”

Guy said he and the committee expect some criticism from respondents.

“At the end of the day we know that it’s impossible, not everyone’s going to say ‘I love it’- we’ve been compromising as best we can,” he said.

For his part, Tremaroli said he would support the mountain explorer if he became the new mascot, though he was one of the students who continued to push for Boone’s reinstatement as the official mascot.

“It’s fighting a losing battle,” said Tremaroli. “I think everyone’s pretty much given up and realized DU’s not going to listen to the majority. But I will always have a soft spot in my heart for Boone.”

Guy said that, unless feedback indicates a need for major revisions on the concepts, the committee will move forward with doing final adjustments and aims to present a final image to the Board of Trustees by the end of July for approval to be the new mascot.

“We’re really doing this to make sure this process doesn’t have to happen again. We want to make something that’s here to stay,” said Guy. “At the end of the day, our goal is really to make that mascot that is best for DU past, present and future.”

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