by Alec Newell
Super Bowl XLIX: Football Mascots and
Logos
Before there
were Super Bowls, Jumbotrons, professional cheerleaders, wardrobe malfunctions,
and million dollar players who prayed or danced obscenely in the end zone, there was the game of football. Whether you favor the Boston Patriots and
their flaccid footballs, or the Seattle Seahawks with their on-field temper
tantrums, it's becoming increasingly difficult to get excited about any of the Super
Bowl match-ups these days. As football descends deeper and deeper into the realm of performance
spectacle, it has begun to look more like professional wrestling than a legitimate
sporting contest.
So how do
you pick a favorite? Most fans are
bonded to their favorite teams through some notion of regional identification
or brand loyalty. After that, reasons to
favor a team become as arbitrary as the betting selections of novice
aficionados at the local horse track. If
you based your selection on team mascots or the uniform colors this year,
Seattle was probably your team. There
was nothing too imaginative about the name change from Boston Patriots to New
England Patriots. There is no catchy
alliteration in the name and nothing sexy or terrifying enough in the team's
logo to get the blood racing. As to the
Patriot's team colors, there is nothing new or imaginative there either.
On the other hand, the Seahawks
have a logo that could have been inspired by a Native American tribal mask or
an Intuit totem pole - a brilliant
stroke of politically correct marketing when compared to a team like the
Redskins. But what is a Seattle Seahawk? Some mythical creature like the Thunder Bird
or a Phoenix? Or something as
arbitrary and obscure as a Cleveland Brown, a Nittany Lion, or a Green Bay
Packer? Turns out it's none of the above. A sea hawk is
another name for an osprey, the same bird that doubles as the local
mascot for the University of North Florida.
Unlike the Detroit
Lions, Tennessee Titans, or the Jacksonville Jaguars, it
seems like a team's name or mascot should reflect some kind of regional
identity. How is a Jaguar any more
descriptive of Jacksonville than say a giraffe or a rhinoceros? At least there are still very real sea hawks
indigenous to the Seattle area, and the logo has an authentic association with
tribes native to the North West Coast of this continent.
PS: If you bet long green on the Seahawks because
you like their uniforms, you just lost. The final score was New England Patriots - 28, Seattle Seahawks - 24.
