Would you support a change

[CajunNation]

Clemson and lsu-br ARE the Tigers.

We are the Ragin' Cajuns. If we roll out a gator mascot, people will confuse us as being the Gators.

With a group of people as a nickname, unless you have an actual person as a mascot, the leprechaun at Notre Dame, your mascot almost by definition has to be, at best, a background figure. It's something that adds background as to who you are without confusing people.

Tennessee VOLUNTEERS have a dog mascot, a coon hound.

Texs A&M AGGIES have a dog mascot, a collie.

The beauty of the Catahoula is that it is original, is not confused with a bulldog to where people will assume you are the bulldogs, and it is tied to the state.......a state that we want to have as our name.

The only way we can have a mascot that can be front and center, with the crazy guy in an animal suit that everybody just loves and doesn't cause mass confusion as to who we are is to change our nickname to whatever that mascot is.

Now, who wants to change our Ragin Cajun nickname?

Not me.

[CajunNation]

[CajunNation]

What mascot comes to mind when you hear the word "AGGIE"?

What mascot comes to mind when you hear "VOLUNTEER"?

What mascot comes to mind when you hear "MOUNTAINEER"?

IRISH?



How many times do I have to say this? When you have a group of people as a nickname, you either have a mascot that is an actual, physical representation of the nickname, or you have a mascot that has to be given background status.

You can't have it both ways. Once you put a mascot, that is not the physical representation of your nickname, on the same level or higher than your nickname, you are changing your nickname by default.

Do you people think that the A&M fans worry that they don't have a cute/cuddly mascot that they can dress up their precious 1 year old like?

They are AGGIES. Everything else is window dressing.

[HoustonCajun]

_ The Bullgator would be an excellent idea if we were the UL Gators. I think it would cause confusion. When we had the Chicken and the Bulldog roaming the sidelines at the same time, it was a lot of fun for sure, but I can't tell you the number of fans from other schools who would question me as to just who the heck we are. The Bulldogs? The Chickens? They just didn't get it.


To me there are 3 options we have for a mascot.


1) A physical representation of our nickname, CAJUN MAN. We've tried it before, and while I think it could work, I don't think there are many that want to go down that road again.

2) An obscure spirit leader/lovable abstact thing. It seems to work for WKU and "the blood clot", not so much with "the flaming vegetable".

3) A mascot that doesn't confuse people like the Bulldog, Chicken, or Gator, but serves a purpose very well in that it further defines who you are. That is the state dog of LOUISIANA, the CATAHOULA.



It could be present at the football games and it could have a page in every gameday program in every sport dedicated to it's long history in the state and it's ties to the fighting spirit of the RAGIN CAJUNS.

You won't be able to promote it like "the flaming vegetable" or the "Bullgator" with its logo on everything, but that is how it should be. RAGIN CAJUNS and UL/LOUISIANA should be center stage.




It boils down to this. While they are many who seem to be very eager to rally around a "thing" that we can be entertained by, wear on our clothes, and put on a bumper sticker, that is a bad idea for the UL RAGIN CAJUNS. We should be rallying around the CAJUNS who are busting their tails on the field of play.

Either embrace RAGIN CAJUNS as our nickname, or change it to the Bullgators, Bulldogs, or whatever animal you want to plaster on your clothes and cars. _

Do you mean like the Alabama Crimson Tide with an elephant as its mascot? Or Auburn Tigers/War Eagles? Or the Tulane Green Wave with a Pelican as its mascot? Or the Texas A&M Aggies with a collie dog as its mascot? I could go on and on. We can be the Ragin Cajuns and have a gator as a mascot. It ties in perfectly with the on-campus swamp and Cajun Field as "the swamp". The Cajun Chicken I never got. The guy was colorful and imaginative in his antics, but there was NEVER a connection to UL. He could do the same antics in a Gator costume. The Bulldog is history, let's leave it there. Besides, with the LA Tech Bulldogs, we don't need to go back to a similar mascot. And, the same with the Catahoula if Centenary has it or the Pelican if Tulane has it.

[CajunNation]

Do you mean like the Alabama Crimson Tide with an elephant as its mascot? Or Auburn Tigers/War Eagles? Or the Tulane Green Wave with a Pelican as its mascot? Or the Texas A&M Aggies with a collie dog as its mascot? I could go on and on. We can be the Ragin Cajuns and have a gator as a mascot. It ties in perfectly with the on-campus swamp and Cajun Field as "the swamp". The Cajun Chicken I never got. The guy was colorful and imaginative in his antics, but there was NEVER a connection to UL. He could do the same antics in a Gator costume. The Bulldog is history, let's leave it there. Besides, with the LA Tech Bulldogs, we don't need to go back to a similar mascot. And, the same with the Catahoula if Centenary has it or the Pelican if Tulane has it.

[RaginWaldo]

_ _

I'm guessing you own a catahoula hound and thats why you are going so ape____ over having that as the mascot?

[HoustonCajun]

_ You drop the pepper altogether. It doesn't even need to be used at the end of "Ragin" in a logo. Anything that will clutter the logo can't be present, be it a pepper, a flame, an extra color, whatever. I don't even like the idea of incorporating black. Doesn't mean it can't be used as trim/accent in our uniforms (although I'd prefer to keep it real with the vermilion & white...many schools get by with only two colors) but no reason for it to be a major part of our logo.

Secondly, two logos, max. Like I said earlier, there were countless variations of our school's name/logos seen last Saturday. You keep the FDL as the main "symbol" for your logo's. Then, you drop the U from all logo's, and keep just the L. They always say that if you use "UL", it has to be followed by the Lafayette. I'm not sure why none of them have figured out that they could just drop the U. So, you've got a capital L, with the FDL incorporated somewhere, as your first logo. Then, you've got another with "Ragin Cajuns" with the FDL incorporated somewhere. Maybe you do one other with LOUISIANA written out, and the FDL. But, that's all you need. The more variations you give them, the more opportunities they'll have to create their own variations.

Ideally, you want a single, simplified "brand" that you can easily market and that is easily recognizable, i.e. the Texas 'Longhorn', Michigan 'M', Oregon 'O'...something that, when people see it, even though it doesn't say, Texas, or Michigan, or Oregon, they know the school it represents. Some may say that the FDL wouldn't be good for this because the Saints are so well associated with it, and that may be a legitimate gripe. But, ours is a little different, and you'd be hard-pressed to find something that represents our culture so uniquely, than that. _

My thinking regarding the pepper as an accent is to somehow tie it in with Tabasco. Otherwise, I agree it does not need to be included.

These are all just our opinions, but I personally like the black accent with the red and white. Keep the logo red and white with just black lining on the lettering and a black FDL. Georgia, for example is red and white, but uses the black lining on its "G" logo, which looks great. Red and white is just too plain, imo.

I agree that we could resolve a lot of this name issue by just using Louisiana and an "L" like Tennesee, Texas, Michigan, and Oregon. Even Louisville uses just an old english "L". And, so what if we use just an "L" also. Michigan, Missouri, Montana all use the "M" and no one confuses them. Oregon State and Oklahoma State both use OSU and have the same black and orange colors and no confuses them. Southern Cal and South Carolina are both USC and no one confuses them. The FDL is on our university crest and has a longer history with UL than with the Saints; they just market it better. No reason we can't still incorporate it into our logo and design the right style letter "L" within it. So, just my preference, you have the current circular logo in red and white with the black trim, get rid of the flames around the FDL, make the FDL solid black with an "L" on it, and drop the 's and use only LOUISIANA. That is not in violation of anything and can be readily marketed as our singular logo and solidify us athletically as LOUISIANA.

[Turbine]

_
3) A mascot that doesn't confuse people like the Bulldog, Chicken, or Gator, but serves a purpose very well in that it further defines who you are. That is the state dog of LOUISIANA, the CATAHOULA.

Like the "State Rep. . . . tile"

When I was growing up we went to Nebraska every summer for at least a couple weeks and guess what, the #1 infatuation topic from my cousins and their friends was Louisiana Alligators. They couldn't get enough on the subject. It captured their imagination, there is a built in quantity here.

I can tell you this, with the priceless Swamp on campus, UL would instantly jump to #1 in the best "live mascot habitats" poll.

[CajunNation]

Like the "State Rep. . . . tile"


I can tell you this, with the priceless Swamp on campus, UL would instantly jump to #1 in the best "live mascot habitats" poll.

<< One theory as to the origins of the breed states that the Catahoula is thought to have descended from "war dogs" (Mastiffs and Greyhounds) brought to Louisiana by Hernando de Soto in the 16th century. In the 1800s, French settlers arrived in Louisiana with their Beauceron. They told of strange looking dogs with haunting glass eyes that were used by the Indians to hunt game in the swamp.^[13] It is thought the Beauceron and Red Wolf/war dog were interbred to produce the Catahoula. >>




The Catahoula has a nice tie to our on campus swamp as well.

My main objection to a gator mascot is the inevitable confusion we would have with the Florida Gators.

I'm tired of being looked upon as the red-headed stepchild of LSU-BR. And I know exactly what the reaction would be from the SEC types..."Oh look how cute....lafayette got a gator mascot too....I guess they are trying to copy Florida...HAHA"

By the way, if we were to adopt the Catahoula as our mascot, the absolute coolest page in the gameday program would be the one with the history of the Catahoula and its ties to Louisiana and the Cajun settlers.

Gator? Almost every freakin' state in the union has gators.