So finally it's come to this. Daniel Boone is seen by some as offensive:
Is a cartoon-like college mascot reminiscent of Daniel Boone -- right down to the legendary coonskin cap -- racist, sexist or otherwise offensive?
Officials at the University of Denver seem to think so. They’ve announced they won’t reinstate “Denver Boone,” who was retired in 1998 as mascot for the UD Pioneers, despite calls to bring him back.
Boone originally had been replaced by a red-tailed hawk named “Ruckus” but the bird never soared high with the student body and was scrapped in 2007, leaving the school without a mascot. Fast forward and the school decided to put together a committee last spring to determine the new mascot, but Boone was not even considered.
“Boone was a polarizing figure that did not reflect the growing diversity of the UD community, but rather was an image that many women, persons of color, international students and faculty members found difficult to relate to as defining the pioneering spirit,” Chancellor Robert Coombe said in a March letter to the school community.
