Grace Vaccaro, Staff Writer
While some people may enter March prepared for March Madness, students at Oneonta prepare for Mascot Madness.
This thirteen-year-long tradition is a battle to name New York’s favorite college mascot. This is all done to promote and showcase the athletic teams of each SUNY school. This tournament features 38 mascots and runs from March 10 at 12:00 PM until April 2 at 2:00 PM.
Our mascot, Red, the red dragon, was victorious in 2021 by a mere 14 points. We were named “New York’s favorite college mascot!” Last year, in 2025, Oneonta came in second place to SUNY Albany’s mascot, Damien the Great Dane. In total, the competition gathered over 330,000 votes.
Coming in second place, Oneonta came back this year ready to dominate. In the first round, we versed SUNY Cortland’s very own red dragon, Blaze. Oneonta was victorious in its first round, with 57% of the votes. In the second round, we faced SUNY Canton’s Rudy Roo, where we won again with 63% of the votes. Heading into the third round, Oneonta prepared for one of its toughest battles that brought back some sad memories.
Coming in second place in 2025 was a tough battle to lose. Oneonta had only lost by 386 votes, a margin that was painfully close. Round three brought back this old pairing, as Oneonta’s Red versus Albany’s Damien the Great Dane.
Throughout the voting period, the margin was just as close as ever, one school always being a single percent higher than the other. Round 3 also incorporated social media votes, meaning that the final poll on the voting website wasn’t final until social media votes were accounted for. When the polls closed on March 23rd at 3:00, Damien had gotten more votes, barely 50.07%. Just as it seemed like history was repeating itself, the social media votes came in. Damien, the Great Dane, had 2,661, and Red had 2,726. In the end, Damein had 18,774, and Red had 18,793
By only nineteen votes, Red was victorious. In fact, out of the entire round, Red had the highest number of votes, raising spirits and promises for the semi-final and final rounds.
SUNY Albany has almost three times the population of SUNY Oneonta, proving just how hard we fought to win this battle. Hundreds of students rallied to have their families, coworkers, and friends, Oneonta members or not, vote for our mascot. Without the help and dedication of others, Red may not have won.
In the semi-finals, Red went up against University at Buffalo’s Victor E. Bull. Red won by a margin of 5,000 votes. Red now advances to the finals, where he will go up against SUNY Brockport’s Ellsworth Eagle. Students hope that our winning streak continues and we take home the title of SUNY’s favorite mascot.
The finals will run from March 31 (12:00pm) to April 2 (3:00pm), so make sure to vote for Red to get us our second win!
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