Conference champion: Big Blue takes conference Mascot Challenge award
Pacific is the defending conference champion in basketball and, until Thursday, was in the Mascot Challenge as well.
But this year, Big Blue, the Utah State University mascot, won the ESPN Zone Big West Mascot Challenge on his third try, after finishing second the past two years.
“[Utah State] and Pacific are the only ones that take this seriously,” Aggie Spirit Squad Adviser Linda Zimmerman said. “We have lost to Pacific by a point or two the last couple of years.”
The challenge, which consists of five different events, takes place every year during the Big West Conference Tournament.
Big Blue was the outright winner of three of the five events to wrest the title away from Powercat, Pacific’s mascot.
Big Blue made eight free throws in the arcade basket toss to pull into the lead right out of the gates. UC Irvine’s Peter the Anteater finished a close second.
The hula hoop was the most surprising of Big Blue’s wins. From the outset the Utah State cheering section was yelling that Powercat was cheating while Big Blue seemed to struggle to keep the hula hoop around his waist.
When the contest finished and the warm California air cleared, Big Blue was announced as the champion and the Anteater and Powercat both went to complain to the judges. No change was made as the Mascot Challenge moved to the next event.
To finish off the challenge the mascots were put into brackets for the arm wrestling competition. Big Blue breezed through the first two rounds slamming both the Matador and Joe Vandal effortlessly.
Powercat awaited Big Blue in the final round and once again Big Blue disposed of his competition and celebrated with the Aggie cheerleaders and the crowd.
The events where Big Blue didn’t fair as well were the horse race, video game and the tug of war.
The opposing tug of war team had tied their rope around the waist of Powercat and won easily. None of the mascots could figure out how to master the video game, but Joe Vandal beat the other mascot competitors, but not the computer controlled ones.
After the final event Powercat, the defending champion presented Big Blue with the mascot challenge trophy and Utah State’s celebration continued.
-krn@cc.usu.edu
Big Blue, center, holds the winning trophy of the Big West conference Mascot Challenge, while surrounded by other Big West mascots. Last year, Big Blue came in second to Pacific´s Powercat. (Photo by John Zsiray)