In New Haven, Yalies Pick New Canine Mascot

They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks—so Yale University got a younger one.

A two-year old English bulldog, Magnificent Mugsy Rangoon, owned by Robert Sansone of Hamden, CT., was picked to be Yale’s next mascot at its annual Spring Fling on Tuesday.

Mugsy is the sixteenth “Handsome Dan” mascot of the Yale athletics department, a tradition of succession which has been in place since the first Handsome Dan in 1889.

Reports of white smoke emerging from Yale’s Battell Chapel announcing Mugsy’s ascension proved to be nothing but seasonal New Haven smog.

The last Handsome Dan, originally named Louis, was famous for a Y-shaped marking on his fur and passed away this past winter, most likely traumatized by his team’s crushing defeat at the 2004 Harvard-Yale Game.

Selected from a field of 10, Mugsy was facing the same odds as a typical Yale applicant.

However, unlike most Yale matriculants, Mugsy’s acceptance garnered national media attention with coverage by Sports Illustrated and USA Today, and earned a spot on ESPN’s Cold Pizza television show.

Steve Conn, Yale Sports Publicity Director, said “it was one of the most covered events in the history of Yale athletics.”

“He was clearly the favorite,” said Conn of Handsome Dan XVI, “the dog was thrilled to win.”

On Mugsy’s application, owner Sansone wrote, “I know Mugsy would make the best Handsome Dan because he is everything a bulldog mascot should be. Besides, he told me himself that he wanted to go to Yale’s home football games.”

Unfortunately, Handsome Dan XVI may have seen the most of dog-eat-dog competition of his career.

As part of his vetting process, Mugsy had to face down the blaring trumpets of the Yale marching band, as well as attack a plush Princeton tiger and a red Harvard blanket.

At the conclusion of the selection process, Mugsy signed away the rest of his doggie years by inking his pawprint onto a contract “to serve as the Yale University Athletics mascot, to be patient with young and old alike and to bring good fortune to the playing fields of Yale.”

While enjoying the scholarly Yale pursuits of soaking up hazy New Haven sun and peering up the skirts of Yale cheerleaders, Mugsy will enjoy fame and luxury greater than most Yalies could dream of.

Previous incarnations of the Yale mascot have visited the White House, inspired the Cole Porter song “Bulldog,” and shown a consistent distaste for the color Crimson.

“It’s a terrific tradition they have,” said Chuck V. Sullivan, Harvard Athletics Director of Communications, of Yale’s event.

When asked why Harvard seems to have an abstract crimson color as its mascot, Sullivan defended the hue, stating that “you find other schools whose mascots are primarily colors.”

He mentioned Dartmouth University’s Big Green and Syracuse University’s Orange mascots.

Technically, Harvard University’s mascot is John Harvard, a “pilgrim-like figure in 17th-century dress” who has more than 300 years on young Mugsy,