Dear Editor,

My first two years on the Hilltop were the darkest in SMU history, the “death penalty” years, when the absence of a football program threatened to critically injure Mustang tradition.

I was in the Mustang Band, and we took it upon ourselves to be the guardians of that tradition until football came back. We took this trust very seriously, with both alumni and future students in mind. Even as we marched for scant crowds at soccer games, we held tight to the idea that we were preserving a meaningful continuity. We worked hard, with deep feeling, to help ensure that being a Mustang would always mean the same things.

Now, I learn that we may as well have given up. Despite our efforts, all it takes is one wealthy interloper to undermine almost a century of tradition.

I can’t express my dismay and disappointment when I found out about the plan to replace Peruna with a “real mustang.” (Or establish co-mascots, or whatever.)

While Mrs. Pickens’s cause is worthy, her pockets are deep and her friends are powerful, she has no business foisting any change on a university to which she has no real connection, let alone a change so significant. And are there no spines on campus? Can no one say simply, “We already have a mascot, thank you very much?”

I once held up my “pony ears” and sang Varsity over Peruna VI’s grave. Now a misguided few want us all to pee on it. I urge real Mustangs everywhere to refuse.

Sincerely,

Karl M. Richter (’91)