INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana.  Emboldened by the NCAA's decision to bar teams with Native American nicknames from post-season tournaments, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals today demonstrated at the athletic group's headquarters in an effort to ban mascots based on non-human animals as well.

"There is nothing so demeaning to a tiger or a lion as to sit in a cage while a zookeeper watches Penn State or LSU on TV," said Heather Ulrich, PETA spokesperson.  "Wild beasts have feelings too." 

The ban would extend to insects such as the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets, Ulrich added, even though she admitted to swatting mosquitoes herself.  "Sometimes the personal isn't political."

Under PETA's proposal, the only teams allowed to compete in the NCAA's March Madness, BCS and College World Series tournaments would be those named after colors, vegetation, forces of nature, minerals and regional human sub-groups such as the "Sooners" of Oklahoma and the "Hoosiers" of Indiana.  "We couldn't care less about people," Ulrich explained. 

The Stanford Cardinal, a color-based name that is symbolized by a undergraduate dressed as a tree, could thus pass muster on either of two grounds, she noted, "although how that guy ever gets a date is beyond me."

Asked to provide member schools with an easy-to-remember yardstick to determine whether their mascot would be permitted under the PETA proposal, Ulrich's colleague Michelle Shaloob said,  "Miami Hurricanes--fine, UCLA Bruins--nein."

If the NCAA agrees to PETA's demand the Iowa State Cyclones would be unaffected by the new policy, but assistant football coach Ogden Fry was not mollified by this fact.  "I don't like to be on the same side of any issue with your wing-nut liberals," he explained.  "The guys at the coffee shop will give me grief for the rest of my natural born days."

Copyright 2005, Con Chapman