Snopes: The official history of Stetson’s mascot?

CLAIM:                 Stetson University in DeLand, Florida has long had a mascot, the Hatter.

STATUS:               True.

ORIGINS:              Stetson students officially became “Hatters” in 1889 when the school decided to recognize the financial contributions of John B. Stetson, the inventor of the cowboy hat.  Yes.  As you might expect, it's been notoriously difficult to capture the image of a "Fighting Hatter;" a brief examination of administrative efforts to focus on the hat has yielded mixed results.

The first recorded image of Stetson’s Hatter was in fact a green statue placed in the Hat Rack patio in 1959 (photo below).  In a prescient stroke of genius, the design committee dyed the statue the exact same shade popularized by Frigidaire’s “Sherwood Green” 1954 refrigerator model (the same model that still stores venison in my grammy’s basement to this day!).  Unfortunately, the statue was vandalized and removed in 1967- those music school rapscallions are probably to blame!  

It’s also possible that another more legitimate mascot removed the embarrassing statue (bearing more than a passing similarity to a certain cartoon Hatter) in the name of school pride…

Left: glorified paperweight.  Right: magnetic paper holder.

The earliest images of Stetson’s mascot as a living, breathing entity that could hug you if it had arms are those of a creepy anthropomorphized hat with curiously long eyelashes.  Perhaps it stroked student faces with its beautiful lashes instead of hugging?  Regardless, students in the 70s had a lot more important things to do than worry about the ferocity of their academic icon, so they didn’t really care that this iteration of the Hatter is known better for providing forehead shade on a sunny day than for trouncing opponents on the athletic field. 

Iconic!

Like many of us who survived the 1980s, the decade will be remembered more for its regrets (scrunchies; shoulderpads) than its successes, and so it is with the Hatter mascot.  

Oh God...can he see us?

This walkaround character (let's call him Earl) has the smirk of a car salesman and the arched eyebrows of a city commissioner surprised to find NBC’s Chris Hansen instead of a “bored...home alone” hottie.  This is probably why he scared children and was sent to the old mascot’s home in a matter of years. 

Pictures like this haven't dispelled the rumors, Earl.

The eyed hat reemerged for a Cher-esque farewell tour  in the 1990s but his glory days were past; we have no reason to believe he survived Desert Storm.

Looking *a little* worn here...but still knows the chorus to "Dark Lady."

The most recent mascot pictured on campus?  A corporate shill for chicken sandwiches and waffle fries.

duPont-Ball Library... and *not* a Hatter

This has got to change. 

All things considered, another individual with Stetson literally flowing through his veins will soon announce his candidacy for university mascot…

Come back tomorrow for more fact-finding from Snopes.com. 

All photos provided by Stetson University Digital Archives, http://archives.stetson.edu:8888/index.php

Mystery Image Found in Hulley Tower

By Paul Danehower

DeLAND – Two Stetson University students looking for historical artifacts found more than bats in a dilapidated belfry late Monday evening.   Senior history major Jessica Riverson and junior music performance major Brian Hausker had planned concurrent senior research papers on the history of the Eloise Chimes, the former bells of Stetson’s Hulley Tower.  What they found was music to any historian’s ears- a piece of long-forgotten Stetson history.

Hulley Tower from Woodland Blvd, before its removal.  Stetson Archives.

                “I was going through leftover bricks from the original Hulley Tower to try and get a sense of what the campus must’ve been like when [the tower] was first built in 1934” said Riverson.   “When they took the tower down in 2005, the administration took the unusual step of documenting the architecture and taking archival photographs.”

                “But they didn’t make the effort to catalogue the bricks themselves” chimes in Hausker. 

                And that, apparently, is where the real story begins.  When sifting through mounds of brick left over from Hulley Tower, the students came upon a stone panel depicting an as-yet unidentified bipedal creature.  Both students believe that the panel most likely was located near the tower’s peak next to the 11-bell carillon.  Photographs of the stone itself have yet to be released to media, but a purported original rubbing of the stone’s image has circulated online since news first broke.   Both students denied ties to the rubbing but have affirmed its relative accuracy.

A rubbing of the stone's original image.  Huffington Post.

                “I’m not sure if the image was included in the original structure of the tower, whether it was added at some point since the Great Depression, or if it was transferred along with the bells from Elizabeth Hall” mused Stetson history professor Dr. C____.  “One thing’s for sure- whatever that stone represents…it’s been here a while.”

And there's the rub; on a small central Florida liberal arts campus, what has existed at Stetson since its inception?