All posts in 250th

Imagine 250+: Homecoming, a beginner’s reflections

By: / September 28, 2014 / 1 Comment /

Okay guys, here we go. Game day. Day of the BIG GAME. Brown versus Harvard, alright alright alright. Boy, I am amped to be the official reporter for this homecoming game. I truly feel as if the stakes could not be any higher, and I mean that sincerely. Full disclosure, I am unfamiliar with the rules of football, but I will not let that stop my hard-hitting play by play! I promise (maybe) that I won’t get bored twenty minutes into the first half.

Above: Football I understand

Above: The kind of football I understand

First thing to note about this game – there are lots of drunk people here. Also lots of penny loafers and blazers, which I think is weird, but to each his own. Who am I to judge? I am not judgmental. I’m bitter I don’t have a Brown State shirt I’m not sure how I feel about the Brown State shirts. Anyway, some people are actually painted with our school colors. That’s pride! Especially since our school colors tend to fall distinctly into the poop-brown and blood-red camps, covering your body in such is a true sign of loyalty.

Anyway, the game. Right – the game!  Brown actually has the ball right now, which I was lead to believe is rare, but I think we’ve had it for a while. At least a down or two. It’s really nice we get to keep the ball even if we drop it! Must be a football thing. Oh, we dropped it, and now Harvard took it. Can they do that? That feels like stealing.

Update: I asked the gentlemen next to me if stealing the ball is a foul and it is not. Nice guy. I’ll befriend him as the game goes on. The Brown band is KILLING it right now. Very into it. Whoever says a tuba restricts movement is very wrong.

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Imagine 250+: ‘Indomitable’ and the History of Brown University’s Mascot

By: / September 24, 2014 / 1 Comment /

Brown Bear and Cubs!

In the ongoing, nationwide debate about what kind of bear is best, the sensible answer is always the brown bear. There’s nothing more intimidating than a 1,500 pound male grizzly, and even polar bears have been hopping on the grizzly train of late.

More importantly, the brown bear is perfectly representative of the Brown University student: social, fierce, and possessing large, curved claws that may reach up to six centimeters in length. As the fall events of Brown’s 250th anniversary grow near, it’s important to look back at the history of this noble mascot, particularly with last year’s installation of ‘Indomitable’ – the massive statue of a Kodiak bear – outside the Nelson Fitness Center.

According to Encyclopedia Brunonia, the first mascot of Brown University was actually a burro, given to the student body by “real estate man” Isaac L. Goff and “valued at $100.” Introduced at a game against Harvard in 1902, the burro was found to be not only frightened of crowds but a totally laughable mascot, and was replaced by a brown bear at the suggestion of Theodore Francis Green in 1904-1905.

A series of brown bears were presented at sporting events in the following years, a number of whom did such typically bearish things as snarling at the opposing teams and (in the case of Bruno III) climbing trees in an attempt to escape the crowds. Plainly, this was back before people realized that keeping live bears on leashes at crowded public events was an incredibly idiotic idea. By the 1960s, students had to be content with humans dressed in bear suits at sporting events.

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