Stanford Tree

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Stanford Tree entering Stanford Stadium.
The Stanford Tree entering Stanford Stadium.

The Stanford Tree is the unofficial mascot of Stanford University. Stanford's team name is "The Cardinal," referring to the vivid red color (not the common song bird as at several other schools), and the University has never been able to come up with an official mascot which adequately conveys the fierceness and sporting prowess it had hoped to symbolize with that particular shade of sanguine. This fact creates a void not typically found at schools with less-abstract symbols for their sports teams, and into this unfulfilled void the Stanford Band has insistently thrust what is one of the United States' most bizarre and controversial college mascots.[1]

Contents

[edit] The Tale of the Tree

The Tree is a member of the Leland Stanford Junior University Marching Band (LSJUMB) and appears at football games, basketball games, and other events where the Band performs.[2] The "Tree" is representative of El Palo Alto, the tree that appears on both the official seal of the University and the municipal seal of Palo Alto, Stanford's host city.

From 1930 until 1972, Stanford's sports teams had been known as "the Indians," and, during the period from 1951 to 1972, Prince Lightfoot (portrayed by Timm Williams, a member of the Yurok tribe) was the official mascot. But in 1972, Native American students and staff members successfully lobbied University President Richard Lyman to abolish the "Indian" name along with what they had come to perceive as an offensive and demeaning mascot. Stanford's teams reverted unofficially to the name "Cardinal," the color that had represented the school before 1930.[3]

Over the next nine years, Stanford's students and administrators debated what mascot and team name should replace the Indian. A student poll taken during this period ranked possible mascot names in the following order: 1. The Robber Barons (in a nod to Leland Stanford, the University's founder); 2. The Thunder Chickens; 3. The Cardinal; 4. The Huns; and, far behind, 5. The Griffins. Finally, in 1981, University President Donald Kennedy declared (unsurprisingly, given the other options available amongst the top-polling names) that the team name would officially remain "The Cardinal."

However, in 1975, the Band had performed a series of halftime shows that facetiously suggested several other new mascot candidates it considered particularly appropriate for Stanford, including the Steaming Manhole, the French Fry, and the Tree. The Tree ended up receiving so much positive attention that the Band decided to make it a permanent fixture, and thus began the process through which the Tree has gradually colonized the collective unconscious of Stanford's student body.

During the first decade of its existence, the role of the Tree was generally performed by the Band managers' girlfriends. In the mid-1980s, however, the Band adopted a more formal selection process for its Trees. Today's Tree candidate must go through "grueling and humiliating physical and mental challenges" to show that he or she has sufficient chutzpah to be the Tree. During "Tree Week," candidates have been known to perform outrageous, unwise, and often dangerous stunts in order to impress the Tree selection committee; so much so that the University has felt the need to prohibit certain types of audition activities over the years,[4] such as those involving explosives, firearms, and, reputedly, haggis.

The Tree's costume, which is created anew each year by the incumbent Tree, is a prominent target for pranksters from rival schools, in particular from Stanford's Bay Area arch-rival, the University of California, Berkeley (Cal). This tendency for the Tree to come to harm at the hands of Cal fans was showcased in the run-up to the 1998 Big Game. An anonymous coterie of fraternity brothers from Cal known as the Phoenix Five stole the costume and held it "hostage" for two weeks until it was turned in to the UC Berkeley chancellor's office and returned to Stanford by the UC Police.[5] In 1996 two Cal students emerged shirtless from the stands at Memorial Stadium at the Big Game during halftime and tackled the tree, breaking branches and eliciting cheers from the Cal alumni prior to being handcuffed and led away.

Violence and absurd levels of prankery have been a two-way street between Cal and Stanford, though. A few years earlier, during an ESPN-televised timeout during a February 1995 basketball game at Maples Pavilion, the Stanford Tree and Cal's mascot Oski got into a fistfight in front of the Stanford student section. The Oski costume's headpiece was forcefully removed by the Tree during the scuffle, which nearly ended Cal's 60+ year tradition of keeping the identity of its mascot-costume wearer secret.[6]

A spate of recent troubles has brought the Tree even more notoriety in college-sports circles. In February 2006, then-Tree Erin Lashnits was suspended until the end of her term as the Tree after her blood-alcohol level was found to be 0.157 (almost twice the legal driving limit in California) during a men's basketball game between Stanford and Cal. UC Berkeley police observed her drinking from a flask during the game and cited her for public drunkenness after she failed a breathalyzer test.[7]

Then, on March 20, 2006, replacement-Tree Tommy Leep was ejected during the Stanford women's basketball team's NCAA tournament game against Florida State University for "dancing in an undesignated area," following an earlier scuffle with tournament security, from whom he had attempted to escape by hurling himself across the basketball court on a rolling chair. The Stanford Athletic Department then banned him from performing for the rest of the NCAA tournament. In protest, members of the Stanford Band wore foliage pinned to their hats and uniforms when they later played at the Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight.

[edit] Individuals who served as the Tree

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

[edit] 1980s

  • 1986-1987: Carole Sams
  • 1987-1988: Paul Brendan Kelly III (first male tree)
  • 1988-1989: William Washington Thomas III
  • 1989-1990: Gil Blank

[edit] 1990s

  • 1990-1991: Todd David
  • 1991-1992: Pete Huyck
  • 1992-1993: Greg Siegel
  • 1993-1994: Charles Goodan
  • 1994-1995: Ari Benjamin Mervis
  • 1995-1996: Christopher Jeffrey Bonzon
  • 1996-1997: Christopher Anselmo Cary
  • 1997-1998: Matthew James Merrill
  • 1998-1999: Christopher Matthew Henderson
  • 1999-2000: Evan Fletcher Meagher

[edit] 2000s

  • 2000-2001: Alexandra Mary Newell
  • 2001-2002: Charles Monroe Armstrong
  • 2002-2003: Andrew Daniel Parker
  • 2003-2004: William Robert Rothacker, Jr.
  • 2004-2005: Daniel Isaac Salier-Hellendag
  • 2005-2006: Erin Wright Lashnits
  • 2006-2007: Thomas Elwood Leep
  • 2007-2008: John Henrique Whipple
  • 2008-2009: Patrick Lawrence Fortune

[8]

[edit] References

  1. ^ How the Card got its color. Retrieved on 2007-04-14.
  2. ^ Arbor Stanfordus. Retrieved on 2007-04-14.
  3. ^ Native American History at Stanford. Retrieved on 2007-04-14.
  4. ^ Students try out to be Tree. Retrieved on 2007-04-14.
  5. ^ Tree relinquished by Cal captors; revered mascot safely back on campus. Retrieved on 2007-04-14.
  6. ^ Defining a Rivalry: Cal versus Stanford. Retrieved on 2007-04-14.
  7. ^ University's tree mascot gets the ax for drinking on the job against Cal. Retrieved on 2007-04-14.
  8. ^ Fortune planted as band mascot. Retrieved on 2008-03-12.

[edit] External links


Leland Stanford Junior University

Student Life

ASSU • Axe Committee • KZSU • Marguerite • Stanford Band • Stanford Chaparral • Stanford Daily • Stanford Review • Stanford Tree