{"id":152045,"date":"2019-03-06T11:59:00","date_gmt":"2019-03-06T16:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=152045"},"modified":"2019-07-30T14:35:17","modified_gmt":"2019-07-30T18:35:17","slug":"students-today-yankees-forever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2019\/03\/students-today-yankees-forever\/","title":{"rendered":"Students Today \u2026 Yankees Forever?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s a persistent story about UConn\u2019s beloved mascot that has even been endorsed by some official publications: at the height of unrest in the 1960s, the student government attempted to sell Jonathan the Husky, disdaining the proud pup as a symbol of the hated Establishment.<\/p>\n<p>The only trouble with the story is, there appears to be no trace of it in the archives of the <em>Daily Campus<\/em>, the <em>Nutmeg<\/em>, or the <em>Hartford Courant<\/em>. Is it possible such a major event somehow evaded the media?<\/p>\n<p>Thanks to an article by <em>Daily Campus<\/em> reporter Ashley Anglisano, there\u2019s now a plausible explanation: in the mid-1960s, following the death of a mascot in a car accident, UConn toyed with the idea of replacing the husky with a human avatar of institutional spirit \u2013 the Connecticut Yankee.<\/p>\n<p>President Homer Babbidge, a Yale-trained historian, always wanted UConn\u2019s mascot to reflect the state\u2019s colonial past, and thought the Yankee was an ideal representation of the school. Fortunately, though, a timely gift from the students of the University of Alaska put an end to any possibility of a future without Jonathan, as this podcast explains.<\/p>\n<p><em>Listen to the podcast (from episode 28):<\/em><\/p>\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-152045-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/History-Corner-28-Alternate-Mascot.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/History-Corner-28-Alternate-Mascot.mp3\">https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/History-Corner-28-Alternate-Mascot.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<p><em>For full episodes of the UConn 360 podcast, visit <\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/uconn.edu\/uconn360-podcast\"><em>uconn.edu\/uconn360-podcast<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This podcast explores how in the 1960s, the University toyed with the possibility of a future without Jonathan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":152063,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2141,2225,2234],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[1902],"class_list":["post-152045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-podcast","category-uconn-storrs","category-university-life","series-heard-here-uconn-360"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-09 14:55:38","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152045"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152045\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":152072,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152045\/revisions\/152072"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/152063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152045"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=152045"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=152045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}