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Spider Mascot

Decent Essays

There are 1,957 four-year colleges in the United States. There are 76 with an eagle as a mascot, 46 which use the tiger, and 39 bulldogs. Yet there is only one college who has a spider as a mascot. Spiders are often popularly known as mean and scary. So why would a university choose a spider as a mascot? In researching this essay, I found that the answer lies in the history of baseball at Richmond. Apparently the term "spider" was first used to describe Puss Ellyson, a baseball pitcher in 1894 because he had "lanky arms and stretching kick" and took to the field with his teammates like a "spider in a web". In delving into this history, what most impressed me was the suggestion that, “the spider was the synonym of success, good judgment and painstaking perseverance.” This makes more sense; these characteristics are something to which every student at the University of Richmond can aspire. …show more content…

However, there are great reasons to love spiders. In the United States, only two kids of spiders are truly harmful to humans (the Brown Recluse, and the Black Widow). The remaining spider species eat other insects we don't want around anyway. They eat mosquitoes carrying malaria (the world's number one fatal disease) and flies carrying cholera. Spiders don't want to bite you. Spiders have horrific eyesight and can't even see you until you are about a foot

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