A Harvard mammalogist took a look at the NCAA tournament. And she’s here to tell you: There’s a fair chance your college mascot is not what you think it is. Especially all you Wildcats.
This story was originally published on Mar. 21, 2022. It was included in a year-end list of SI’s best stories of 2022.
Back in 1999, when I was a Ph.D. student at the University of Washington, my then sports-fanatic boyfriend got us tickets to the NCAA tournament’s first-round games in Seattle. I hadn’t really followed college basketball; I’d never filled out a bracket or understood what the “madness” was all about.