Utah cougars are apparently more easily offended than the cougars in Washington state; the students at Corner Canyon High School chose to adopt the cougar as their mascot. But the School Board decided that the cougar mascot might offend older women in the Salt Lake City region because of the negative association with the term cougar and forced the high school students to choose a different mascot.
According to THIS article from Yahoo, the term cougar has transcended beyond the Urban Dictionary and is now in the Webster Dictionary for its slang use. The second definition is: "a middle-aged woman seeking a romantic relationship with a younger man."
Neither the article, nor the dictionary defines either the age of a middle-aged woman or the age of “a much younger man.” Perhaps the conservative school board members are worried that their female teachers will be tempted by the very word “cougar” and will try to seduce one of their students. I doubt that’s happened before at Corner Canyon High School, but teacher-student relationships presumably instigated by cougars have happened in the past.
The worst example of a Cougar-student relationship that comes to my mind is that of Seattle resident Mary Kay Letourneau who had two kids while in jail. The father was her former 13-year-old student. The best example of a cougar is probably Mrs. Robinson from “The Graduate.”
Still, it’s hard to imagine that the word Cougar would be so offensive to anyone that they would force the school to choose a new mascot. That said, I disagree with many decisions made in the state of Utah, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.
Instead of being the Corner Canyon High School Cougars, the school will be Corner Canyon High School Chargers; I’m guessing that no one in Utah is offended by the Energizer Bunny or anything battery-related. (Oooops, I take back the part about the lack of offense to anything battery-related. Sex toys are legal to sell in Utah, but again, it’s highly doubtful that this particular school board would condone the use of sex toys before, during, or after school hours.)
I can understand other un-politically correct mascots being changed, but the Cougar mascot should be perfectly acceptable. There are far worse mascots in use at high schools and colleges today. Consider the Oregon State Beavers. I don’t know about you, but that term might be a little more offensive to women than Cougars.
Just saying.
Image credit: http://naturemappingfoundation.org/natmap/facts/cougar_k6.html