Like the mythical centaur, Allentown College of St. Francis De Sales mascot of 30 years will live on only in the imagination.
The college will replace the uncivil centaur with a burly bulldog on Jan. 1. The bulldog is part of a new image for the Catholic institution, which will change its name in the new year to De Sales University.
The strong and stubborn canine was selected by a school task force from among five possible names. In a 17-2 vote, a committee of administrators, faculty, students and alumni chose the bulldog over a deacon, dragon, patriot and phoenix.
The committee saw the short and square-jawed dog as a mascot students could rally around and get excited about, said Scott Coval, athletic director. The bulldog blended fierce and feisty with fun and lovable. And while it doesn’t hurt that the Lehigh Valley has come to love bulldogs as the symbol of Mack Trucks Inc., that connection didn’t factor into the college’s decision.
“People just thought the bulldog would be fun,” said the Rev. Bernard O’Connor, college president. “We don’t see it in any way as a symbol representing the institution. We see it as a fun, little thing for sporting events.”
But the mascot has meant more than that to some alumni, who have threatened to make their donations disappear like the centaur. They felt a kinship to the creature with a man’s upper body and a horse’s trunk and legs. That connection formed in the college’s early years when students voted to become the Centaurs of Center Valley. Because the centaur was selected democratically, it should have been abolished the same way, said Al Rauber, Class of 1970.
“We just felt that we were slighted,” he said. “It wasn’t done in the right manner. We’re not saying we’re opposed to the change of the centaur. We’re just saying it should have been put to a vote.”
The vote that created the centaur in the late 1960s was made by an all-male student body. As women enrolled in the 1970s, some questioned the college’s connection to a lascivious mythical creature. In one myth, centaurs get drunk at a wedding feast and try to kidnap the women guests. In another, a centaur tries to rape Hercules’ wife.
Lisa M. Little, a former Centaur volleyball player, was proud to be a Centaur. Well aware of the centaur’s mythological meaning, Little, who graduated in 1986, said she wasn’t offended by the image and is bothered by the decision to change it.
“First they tell you the school you went to is no longer going to exist in name. Then, a couple of weeks later, you find out that they’re going to change the mascot too,” she said.
Rauber said the centaur was more than a mascot, it was part of the school’s history. And it was a part that students created.
“My class was small. It was close-knit. We felt a particular ownership with the school because we were one of the first classes,” he said. “We established certain traditions there and now they’re all gone. This was the last one.”
O’Connor said that while he has received some letters opposing the change, most of the alumni who have contacted him have been in favor of it.
Even Rauber, who objected to the way the centaur was removed, never really liked the man-horse.
“The centaur is a ridiculous mascot,” he said. “Personally, I think the bulldog is pretty neat.”
Reporter Christine Schiavo
610-820-6509
christine.schiavo@mcall.com
