Mascot competition rallies students around new image of Topper

Last week, the St. Edward’s community united as one as the school participated in the Catholic Mascotology competition for the first time ever. After competing up against some well known schools across the country, the Hilltoppers, with a new, rebranded mascot, finished a respectable No. 4, losing to the Mount Saint Mary’s University Mountaineer.

The Mountaineer went on to win the competition, beating The University of Scranton Royal in the final championship match up.

The competition, organized by Busted Halo, an online Catholic ministry and media center, was founded by the Paulist Fathers. According to the Busted Halo website, the fathers are a “religious order of Roman Catholic priests — the first to be founded by an American citizen — whose mission territory is the United States and Canada. The original founder of the Paulists, Fr. Isaac Hecker, CSP, believed strongly in using the most modern methods of communication to bring to life the ancient message of the Gospel.”

It was Director of Campus Ministry Father Peter Walsh who initiated getting St. Edward’s involved.

“Back in the second week of August, I received an email from their productions editor describing the competition and invited us to include our mascot,” Walsh said.

Walsh explained that what drew him to the competition was its overall the purpose.

“It’s a fun and competitive contest that kicks off the academic year, bolsters school spirit and shines a positive spotlight on Catholic schools,” Walsh said. “We’ll be using many different Catholic school mascots from around the country and would like to include the St. Edward’s University Hilltopper this year as one of the competitors.”

Walsh faced an interesting dilemma, however, when he had to send a picture of the St. Edward’s mascot into Busted Halo. They needed a picture and desertion of Topper by Sept. 10, however at the time, St. Edward’s was rebranding the mascot. 

“As you know, Topper’s new image was going to be revealed on Sept. 5 as part of Hillfest. I didn’t want to send in the old image, but I could not send in the new one until he made his debut,” Walsh said. “We had to work quick to get the high resolution image and description written. As it turned out, Busted Halo wrote their own description, having a little fun with the “What the Heck Is It” nature of Topper.”

Once all the information was submitted, the brackets went live on Sept. 15. The St. Edward’s community pulled together, and students, faculty and offices from around the university engaged their social media to encourage everyone to vote for Topper.

“It was fun to watch Facebook, Twitter and other media light up with news about Catholic Mascotology from all kinds of folks: Campus Ministry, Student Life, the official St. Edward’s University presence on Facebook and of course Dr. Mary Boyd,” Walsh said. “While I wish Topper had made it to the Championship–and he lost by only 33 votes in the last ten minutes of voting–I’m really happy at how well he and our entire community did. We were very spirited and aggressive promoters of our fierce new image of Topper.”

Junior student Trey Stoker also had fun with the competition and with the passion he has for school spirit, wanted to connect and inspire people to vote.

“I was shocked by the responses and positive feedback that the students and peers around the university submitted and showed,” Stoker said. “It seemed like an infectious thing that everyone really enjoyed being a part of.”

Stoker, as well as everyone affiliated with St. Edward’s hopes that next year the Topper is able to finish out the competition and go all the way.

Follow Riana on Twitter for more!