SA debates funding for new uniform

Holly Leske

 

The current and future students who don the Jack mascot uniform may be breathing sighs of relief as the push for two new uniforms continues.

Former Students’ Association president Mark York was alerted to the need for the new uniforms and brought forward the idea of providing partial funding from SA to aid the process of acquiring them.

The current mascot uniform was made 15 years ago and is in deteriorating condition. York, a friend of the current student who wears the mascot uniform, had firsthand accounts of how badly the uniform needs to be updated.

“It wasn’t made out of a material that it should have been made out of. It wasn’t as breathable as it should be,” York said. “At that point it needs to be replaced.”

Another concern for the mascot uniform is there is only one uniform for sporting events. This especially becomes a challenge when there are multiple teams playing at the same time, but only one mascot to go around. This problem was highlighted especially during the men’s and women’s NCAA basketball tournaments, when Jack was unable to make it to the women’s game because it was in New Mexico where the men’s team was playing.

York proposed the idea to SA in one of his last meetings as SA president, including the idea that SA would then offer up part of the money in hopes of convincing alumni to match their donation. York proposed donating $2,000 of SA’s funds toward the new uniforms.

Other senators disagreed with donating money to the Athletic Department, like senator Hassan Ali. The College of Arts and Sciences representative disagreed over whetherw SA should offer any money for uniforms generally covered by the Athletics Department and that, although it may help open up the mascot for wider use, they had yet to get that opportunity in writing.

“My main objection was that we were cutting student groups money but we’re willing to give money to a mascot that students are not going to be able to have access to that easily,” Ali said.

It was former SA senator Rebecca Powell who was able to spearhead the compromise by bringing the original allocation of $2,000 down to $1,000. Looking at the wide variety of groups and programs that use the mascot uniform, Powell felt new uniforms would benefit all of SDSU and give those who use the uniform easier access.

“If just Athletics purchased it, who knows, that would be up to Athletics,” Powell said. “If the students took a part of it, we could all share it.”

York also emphasized this idea, adding there was a discrepancy on how the Jack mascot uniform was rented out to student groups on campus. If SA was going to offer some money toward the uniform, they hoped, in turn, access to the uniform would be given at less of a cost.

“We’re putting forth money for the mascot and we’re going to have to pay more money to use it. We as students thought ‘That’s not the best deal,’” York said.

Also, despite SA passing the allocation, it was done the meeting before seats were changed and Jameson Berreth and Wyatt DeJong took over leadership. York realizes this will take close interaction with Berreth and DeJong because “they’re the ones who really have a say.” Although SA has decided to offer up $1,000, they still have yet to agree on the specifics of the deal.

“We’re still working with the other people on campus to see what we can do — [to see] if we can get this free for student groups,” York said. “The (SA) senate has authorized the leadership to put $1,000 forward, but we as a leadership are still not sure if we want to because we don’t know what we’re going to get out of it.”