The Big West's giant costume ball
The Oregon Duck mascot once got suspended for doing bad things to another mascot at a football game. The Stanford Tree mascot has been banned from sporting events for a variety of reasons. And we're not even sure we want to know what happens with the two UCLA Bruins mascots, Joe and Josephine, when all the kids leave Pauley Pavilion after a basketball game.
But that's the Pac-10's problem. The Big West has bigger issues.
Thursday at the ESPN Zone in Anaheim's Downtown Disney, leading into the annual Big West Conference tournament at the Anaheim Convention Center, it'll be Cal State Northridge's mascot, the Matador, attempting to defend his title in the seventh annual Mascot Meyhem contest.
More specifically, every Big West mascot, in full costume, has to compete in contests such as basketball free-throw shooting, tug-o-war, arm wrestling and hula-hooping to determine which one is ... best?
If we had to seed the mascot according how each school did in the regular season, the UC Santa Barbara "Fantom of the Dome" mascot would be the early slight favorite over the Matador and Tuffy The Titan of Cal State Fullerton.
Scotty the Bear (UC Riverside), Peter the Anteater (UC Irvine), Musty the Mustang (Cal Poly), Prospectin' Pete (Long Beach State), the PowerCat (University of the Pacific) and Gunrock (UC Davis) are supposedly all on equal oversized footing in this competition, which is free to whomever in the area straggles into the ESPN Zone at about 4 p.m. Thursday. No requirement to dine in and order the Chris Berman Tongue Sandwich.