He's worked the sidelines since 1932: pencil mustache, mask, green Spanish-style hat. Come spring, "The Don" is out of a job, and a wolf is taking his place.
What's happening
The University of San Francisco announced Friday that it's retiring its Don Francisco mascot character and introducing a wolf in spring 2027, according to the university and reporting by the San Francisco Chronicle. Teams will still be called the Dons.
"With new leadership at USF and in Dons Athletics, we believe the time is right to revitalize our image and embrace a new mascot, one that is known for its intelligence, endurance and ability to work cooperatively in its pack," USF President Salvador Aceves said. "At the same time, we will proudly remain the University of San Francisco Dons."
The school says it will phase out references to Don Francisco across its communications, materials and campus spaces. It also says the character is already gone from Dons Athletics events.
How we got here
The Chronicle reported that the mascot honored Don Francisco de Haro, the first mayor of Yerba Buena, the town that became San Francisco.
In 2022, USF's student senate passed a resolution calling for the character to be retired. According to the Chronicle, the resolution argued the figure stood for the history of Spanish colonization of California's Indigenous people. More than 400 students signed a petition backing it, the paper reported.
USF says a working group of alumni, students, faculty, librarians and staff then surveyed the campus. It found "substantial support" for the Dons name but not for the Don Francisco character.
Ariana Anayat, who led the push as student government vice president and graduated in 2023, told the Chronicle she felt "elated to see our work finally come to fruition."
Why a wolf
USF says the wolf comes from its Jesuit roots. Two wolves appear on the coat of arms of St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, and a bronze statue of them, "Los Lobos de Loyola," stands in front of the campus library.
"Ignatius was a Spanish nobleman or 'Don' before he pursued religious life," said Kevin Burke, the USF vice president overseeing the transition, in a university statement.
Not everyone's howling with joy. The Chronicle and the California Post reported that some alumni pushed back on social media. "I cannot stand this revision of the past, especially in sports logos," one alum wrote on Facebook, per the Chronicle.
Sippin's take: The shame of kids these days
This section is opinion.
A cartoon guy in a hat has cheered for these teams since before World War II, and a campus resolution four years ago was enough to get him retired. That's where we are.
We get that history is complicated. But a mascot isn't a history lesson; it's a guy in a costume who gets kids to yell at basketball games. This generation of activists seems to read every tradition as an injury, and every one of them comes with a petition. Four hundred signatures is not a referendum on 90-plus years of school spirit. The alumni who've worn green and gold for decades deserved more of a say than a Facebook comment section.
Here's the kicker, though: the school kept the name. So the Don is being canceled while the Dons live on. If the name is honorable enough to keep, so was the guy who embodied it.
To be fair, USF says its working group heard from the whole campus before it decided, and the wolf has real roots there. Students are allowed to push, and a school is allowed to listen. We just wish more young people put that energy into building traditions instead of tearing them down.
Photo: Shawn (shawncalhoun) via Flickr, CC BY-NC 2.0
