Montana Once Used Live Bears at Football Games… What Were We Thinking?

A few friends and I were watching March Madness games last weekend. We were having a couple of adult beverages and enjoying all of the games. It was a great time.

One of my friends, a lifelong Griz fan and Griz historian, brought up the time when the University of Montana used live bear mascots at football games.

I said, "Excuse me? We had live bears at football games? Are you serious?"

Sure enough, KPAX covered it last year. There were "at least 17 bears between 1904 and 1960," used at UM. Unfortunately, the article details how the little black bear cubs were treated poorly and faced "cruel treatment."

Call me a sissy, but that's sad. We plucked baby bears out of the wild and put them in front of thousands. That's messed up, man.

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In my opinion, it wasn't the smartest move to trot out a real, live baby black bear for a handful of reasons.

1) It's just dangerous. I know it's a cub, but still, you're playing with fire.

2) It's a black bear. Montana isn't even the black bears. We are the Grizzlies. Just looks stupid when you display the wrong bear.

3) It's a baby bear. Did they think bringing a baby bear out was going to intimidate the opposing team?

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Several college teams have live mascots like the Colorado Buffaloes, Texas Longhorns, or Washington Huskies, but those animals feel slightly different than a freaking bear.

Here are some other stupid live mascot ideas:

Duke Blue Devils. Find the devil, color him blue, and place him on top of the cheerleader pyramid.

Miami Hurricanes. Get a voodoo witch doctor to bottle up a hurricane and unleash it on the opponents.

Austin Peay Governors. Force the state governor to make appearances as a mascot at your football games. It's a part of the job.

I don't know. It's all bizarre to me. Let's not bring a live bear back to Washington-Grizzly Stadium.