Goodbye Cy

It’s funny that he brought it up because right when I saw the new Cyclone’s uniforms, one of the first things that popped into my head was McDonalds. As Iowa State athletic director Jamie Pollard unveiled the new uniforms for the Cyclone’s football team, one distinct thing was missing, Cy.
“Much like Disney made the choice to promote the ears, but still uses Mickey and McDonalds promotes the arches but still uses Ronald, the Cyclones will still have Cy,” Pollard said at the press conference.
The Cyclones may still have Cy but what they now have are McDonald colored uniforms. To me, gold+red=McDonalds.
After the press conference, Pollard chatted with reporters. He asked what we thought. The most ironic thing was the first group of reporters he looked to were us, the four reporters from the student newspaper, the student. His first job of the day was announcing the new logo and uniforms. His job for the next year, selling it to students.
Throughout the process, fans could vote on which of the three designs they liked the most. While the voting started, fans started rallying around Cy like it was another most dominate mascot on the earth contest. Facebook groups popped up saying, “Save Cy.”
Throughout the day, I walked around campus showing students pictures of the new uniforms. Just about every time, the first question was, “where is Cy.” If the question didn’t come up, I could see eye balls wondering throughout the pictures looking for him.
Fans seemed to enjoy the new look but they miss Cy.
The most ironic thing out of this isn’t that Cy is missing, it’s the conversation that I had with an athletic department intern. I asked her what she thought of the new uniforms.
“I hate them,” she said.
Before the announcement, she along with several co-workers had plopped up side-by-side photos of the new uniforms with Southern California’s. Just about identical she said.
If they aren’t going to have the Trojan’s record right now, why not look like them?
“Whatever we need to do to win games,” one student told me. “If you need new uniforms to win games, then do it.”