Seeing all the fabulous publicity and the glorious outcome of Purdue's mascot redux, the worthless, IU-homer rag fine folks at the Indy Star felt it was time that Bloomington put an end to the eternal question: "What's a Hoosier?".

We Boilers know all to well the process of a few busy-bodies trying to come up with a 'let's please everybody' revamp of a mascot.  But what about when a school has no established mascot?

Previously, our in-state rival had made attempts at establishing an on-field mascot.  One, from the late 1960's, is what appears to be the front half of a buffalo (gee, how did that fail?!?).  Budget cuts at the time forced a "wait and see" policy on purchasing the other half of the buffalo.  I'm thinking that was a "no".  Later in 1979, Don Imus himself was on the field for the Hoosiers, but was forced out due to unpublished racist comments (totally unconfirmed, but c'mon - how could he not have?). 

via cmsimg.indystar.com

Both the Indy Star article and our always-ready-for-a-debate rivals at the Crimson Quarry weigh in on what should and should not be when it comes to an official mascot.  They seem to be struggling quite a bit, so feel free to drop in and offer some suggestions.  There's been suggestions of various members of the animal kingdom (white tail deer, giraffes, and bison - oh my!).  They do seem to agree that the country 'bumpkin' is not the way to go (although that does appear to be the actual origin).  Seems to work for WVU.

via www.thenextgreatgeneration.com

Looks like John and AJ could use some help here.  The suggestions so far are not terribly inspiring, many of which fall into the status quo category of "we don't need a mascot".