Texas Tech's Masked Rider ranks among AP's coolest college mascots
The Associated Press has named Texas Tech's Masked Rider as the ninth best mascot in college football. Christi Chadwell, a sophomore agriculture communications major from Garland, is in the saddle this year as the 49th student to serve as the Masked Rider.
The Masked Rider is one of the most recognizable college mascots in the country. Wearing black riding clothes, mask, bolero hat, scarlet cape, and perched atop Midnight Matador, a black quarter horse, this rider is among the most colorful symbols of school spirit in the nation.
With help from the AP's college football poll voters, here are the 12 coolest mascots
in the country:
"Ralphie the Buffalo (Colorado)
"Uga (Georgia)
"Chief Osceola (Florida State)
"Mike the Tiger (LSU)
"War Eagle (Auburn)
"Tree (Stanford)
"Bevo (Texas)
"The Mountaineer (West Virginia)
"The Masked Rider (Texas Tech)
"Sparty (Michigan State)
"The Leprechaun (Notre Dame)
"The Fighting Duck (Oregon)
In the coming year Chadwell will make hundreds of appearances and put thousands of miles on the Masked Rider's pickup as she crisscrosses the Southwest to promote Texas Tech spirit and goodwill at athletic events, parades, rodeos and other functions. She was selected earlier this year through a process involving a horsemanship trial scored by independent professional judges and interviews with the university's Masked Rider Advisory Committee.
The Masked Rider tradition dates to the 1936 season when George Tate, wearing a cape made by Tech's home economics department, led the team onto the field aboard a horse borrowed from the Tech barn.
By Norman Martin
CONTACT: Steve Fraze, chairman, Department of Agricultural Education and Communications, Texas Tech University at (806) 742-2816 or steven.fraze@ttu.edu
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