Stetson University is hosting a Mascot Challenge to give the “Hatters” a new look and personality!

Stetson alumni, students, faculty, staff, student organizations and university departments can now submit their ideas online at www2.stetson.edu/mascot, and anyone (including the general public) can vote on the submissions they like best. Several ideas have already been submitted, and new entries are coming in daily.

“We’re doing it to give the Hat an attitude or a personality that rallies the school spirit and gets people fired up,” said Joel Jones, Stetson director of Creative Services.

The Mascot Challenge runs through June 25, and judging will take place on which submission will become the newest face for the Hatters. The new mascot will be unveiled at the first men’s basketball home game this fall.

The top four submissions, based on voting and popularity, will go to a committee that will choose the winner. The committee will include representatives from the Athletics Department, community and alumni. Mascot judging will be based on originality, feasibility and overall appeal.

It has been quite some time since there was an identity with the Hat. With the success of the sports teams, football coming to Stetson and women’s lacrosse moving up to the NCAA stage in 2013, a mascot that everyone can positively identify with is vital, Jones said.

This is not the first time the mascot has changed. Stetson has an extensive mascot history – with different versions of the Hatter (aka the Mad Hatter) mascot dating back at least 50 years. There was the pot-bellied mascot statue that sat outside the university’s Hat Rack and lasted from 1959-1967. Others included a ten-gallon-hat costume worn at sporting events in the 1970s, a leprechaun-looking Mad Hatter introduced in 1980, and a variation to the Mad Hatter with a big-faced smiling mascot wearing a Stetson hat in 1995.

History is being rewritten with the Mascot Challenge fully under way.