Long live the slug.
The banana slug, the large mollusk native to the forests around the University of California at Santa Cruz, has been the school's mascot now for a quarter-century, with no signs of slithering away, the Santa Cruz Sentinel reported.
This week, the school celebrated the 25th anniversary of the slug's official adoption as the school's mascot. For UCSC, long known for a counterculture, alternative atmosphere -- the school didn't have organized intercollegiate athletics nor grades for a long time -- the slug is the perfect fit.
A former president wanted to name the sea lion as the school's mascot, but the slug, which had been an unofficial identity, won out after a student body organized support for the slug.
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