After Clemson definitively won their conference championship game tonight, the Clemson coach had an on-field interview with ESPN, where behind him was the Clemson Tigers’ mascot. This looked like a cute plushie tiger suit, or something like that; but probably a more accurate description would be to say that it looked like a stuffed animal or a cartoon character: like Tigger, or like Hobbes (from Calvin and Hobbes). In any case, it was a lot more cute than it was intimidating. I thought that being called the tigers would be to make people think of the ferocious, clawed, man-eating jungle cat predator; but apparently, it’s to make you have a cute attack, and forget that you’re supposed to be fighting hard to win. But hey: history is littered with stories of reverse-psychology winning the day for armies and such, so maybe this is what they’re trying to do here.
