When students were given the chance to decide on their school mascot, they chose the Gators. At least that was the case in Arkansas' Two Rivers School District after a school merger - and UF is not happy about it.
Well-designed and well-known logos are frequently subject to parodies, knock-offs or theft. Given the Gators' success across several sports in the past decade, we can't say we're surprised that kids in Arkansas are digging for a reason to root for the Orange and Blue over their Razorbacks.
Instead of slapping the school district on the wrist and pushing them into spending $8,000 to have the Gators logo removed from its gymnasium floor, UF should have taken it as a compliment and used it as an opportunity to expand the Gator Nation.
The university could use a few more out-of-state students to help pay the bills - the administration's never been coy about admitting that - so why not have them come from Arkansas? It seems to us that there's a well of students who would love nothing more than to don some Orange and Blue and watch Gators sports.
And think of the merchandising opportunity. The market here in Florida is saturated, but UF could easily sling some of last year's T-shirt stock to kids in Arkansas. Of course, if they let one school slip by, they have to let the rest of them get away with it, too, but with proper merchandising we don't see how that would be a problem.
If we can get enough high school Gators teams out there maybe we can sell enough hats to pay for those Reitz Union renovations.
