IF A DRUNKEN TREE FALLS IN THE WOODS . . .

. . . will anyone hear it? That question became more relevant earlier this week than it had been before. See, Stanford University uses a tree as its mascot for athletics. A tree. In 1972, Stanford got rid of their Indian mascot and replaced it with a tree. As a side note, this terrifies me when we at Illinois discuss the Illini logo.

Anyway, Stanford fired their mascot last week for being drunk during a game. Her blood alcohol level was almost twice the legal limit to drive. I assume that California has a legal limit for driving a mascot outfit, but I don't know what it is. I have also seen the Stanford tree perform, and I have no idea how you would tell she was drunk.

By the way, the story also pointed out that the band was on "alcohol suspension" which required a zero-tolerance policy toward drunkenness. I guess I had assumed that drunkenness would be banned generally for a college band playing at an athletic event. Silly me. A band spokeswoman went on to say, "we don't want to risk our core mission of rocking out and bringing funk to the funkless."