The Vanderbilt Vendidad

A meeting of awesome mascots

I’ve been wracking my brain, trying to think of what I, a lowly blogger that nobody reads, can do to help Vanderbilt transform itself into a legendary football program.

It’s time for a clean slate.

It’s time to retire the Commodore.

Do you remember our old pre-game routine? The band would gather around a Looney Tunes-esque dynamite detonator; our beloved Mr. C would strut onto the field and compress it, causing the band to scatter, as if blown up by dynamite. It was cute.

But did it help us win? Hell no. In fact, what has Mr. C ever done to help us win? Very little over the last three decades, I’ll tell you that much. I can’t really vouch one way or the other before that. These days, Mr. C doesn’t scare anybody.

So picture this:

Typical pregame band routine. The band gathers around the dynamite detonator box. La, la, la; we’re all having fun. Mr. C should come out any moment.

But Mr. C isn’t coming. Where is he? The band’s tooting falters, then collapses, students looking around for their beloved mascot.

Suddenly, the jumbotron turns to static. Thunder claps. And the jumbotron switches to a live feed, a mysterious hand adjusting the camera’s lens into focus.

What is it? What’s that squirming shape?

It’s Mr. Commodore, strapped to LIVE DYNAMITE, his cocky, faux-intimidating grin frozen into a what can only be interpreted as a terrified, faux-intimidating grin.

People scream. Cheerleaders cry. Vandy dads cover their childrens’ eyes. Something terrible is happening.

Suddenly, smoke billows from the tunnel beneath the stadium. A siren pierces the stadium. Rain begins to fall. The jumbotron flashes a message across the screen:

FEAR THE BLACKSMITH

What’s going on?

Then, running out from the plume of smoke: children, dressed as medieval jesters. They carry kindling and bellows and hatchets and sticks with bells on the end of them. They’re unruly. A policeman tries to corral them, and their leader cuts his arm off. Paramedics tend to him. Police keep their distance.

They’re pulling a rope, all together. At the end of the rope is a wooden cart, and on the cart is an anvil. Spare jester children jump around menacingly, throwing things at the band members. A second wooden cart drags behind the first, this one with a medieval hangman’s pulley system.

A deadly quiet comes over the stadium. The only sound is the jeering and jangling of the jester children. Police level their tazers at the children, but can’t find the guts to do it, one of their own already made an example.

The children run the anvil rope through the pulley, and together hoist the anvil in the air, DIRECTLY OVER THE DYNAMITE DETONATOR. Mr. C struggles against his chains, to no avail.

The children stake the rope to the ground, the anvil hanging precariously over the detonator.

And from the smoke comes a new figure.

A large man, seven feet tall, his skin covered with soot and grime, sweat glistening from his powerful shoulders. He wears deerskin boots, leather pants, no shirt, and a leather apron. Mysterious tattoos adorn his back.

On his face is a primitive welder’s mask. In his calloused hands is a broadsword, its blade crude and dull.

The jumbotron flashes new text:

WITNESS THE DAWN OF THE ERA OF THE VANDERBILT BLACKSMITHS

The jester children stoke a fire on the sideline with their kindling and their bellows.

Fans yell in terror as the mysterious Blacksmith (“Lucious”) approaches the rope-pulley-anvil contraption. The crowd gets restless. Cries of no! and save Mr. Commodore! squeak into the air.

But the Blacksmith is merciless. He raises his dull sword in the air, hesitates for a moment, and then brings it onto the taut rope.

The anvil drops.

The moment lasts an eternity.

Then the ground quakes. A flash of red goes across the jumbotron, a piece of foam rubber hurtling toward the camera, and the screen goes black.

Silence. Then a scream. Then the collective weeping of all who loved Mr. C.

The Blacksmith’s muscles glisten as his gnarled hands load the anvil back onto the cart. The jester children tug it to the sideline and place it over the fire that awaits it, stoking it with kindling, blowing it with the bellows.

Whose children are they? Where did they come from?

Calmly, the Blacksmith approaches the anvil. He lays the dull sword across its face. He raises his hammer in the air, and brings it down.

TINK!

A shower of sparks.

TINK!

Another.

TINK!

Suddenly, the band lines up in formation. They ready their instruments.

The stadium announcer: Ladies and gentlemen, a moment of silence for Mister Commodore, faithful mascot for over a century.

And now, please stand and welcome YOUR! VANDERBILT! BLACKSMITHS!

The team rushes onto the field from the tunnel, dressed in all black uniforms with black numbers and black helmets and welder’s masks.

And Vanderbilt begins a new, winning era as the Vanderbilt Blacksmiths.