Chicken Hawk

Stop the Presses column by Chris Graham

I gotta admit something here that’s going to be difficult for me.

See, I’m a Southern Gentleman, a real-life Virginia Cavalier, if you will.

Which is why I think it’s high time that we get rid of that CavMan mascot at my alma mater, the University of Virginia.

I find it demeaning as a Gentleman Cavalier to have my kind represented in that manner.

Sorry if that offends you – but it’s the way that I feel.

I mean, honestly – the other day, I was at a basketball game, and up on the giant video scoreboard, CavMan was killing a man inside giant turtle costume who had some vague connection to the University of Maryland in broad daylight right there on the Lawn.

Are we supposed to gather from that that all Virginia Cavalier Gentleman-types act in a similar manner?

That we all brandish swords in public – and use them basically without discretion whenever somebody who has a countering opinion of how well our athletics teams perform dares to express said opinions in a public forum?

I don’t even own a sword, for the record – nor have I ever even held one in my hands.

I do occasionally don a cape – and I have a certain fondness for felt hats.

That said, I’m not sure I have the kind of fashion sense that would be required to wear all of these things in public.

But if you associated the CavMan mascot with me due to our Gent-eel similarities, well, you’d come to all sorts of conclusions about me, now, wouldn’t you?

And you’d be wrong.

For instance, I do not keep a goatee – I did for about a decade, but I’ve gone beardless for going on two years now, thank you very much.

Nor do I ride a horse – as if being an experienced horseman is among the prerequisities for being a 21st-century Cavalier.

And as for those other antics that CavMan allows himself to get caught up in …

It’s time that we bring all these many years of nonsense to a final and fitting end.

Drop the CavMan – replace him with some neutered PC bird or something else that is otherwise full of sound and fury and signifying nothing.

My first preference – the Chicken Hawk.

 

Chris Graham is the executive editor of The New Dominion. Chicken Hawks?