Chief Moccanooga was the former athletic mascot for the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, until 1996, when the university abandoned the mascot as potentially offensive at the request of the Chattanooga InterTribal Association. Chief Moccanooga was replaced with a mockingbird, the state bird of Tennessee, and the nickname for Chattanooga athletics was changed from 'Moccasins' to simply 'Mocs'.
Chattanooga's decision to remove Chief Moccanooga as mascot was similar to the actions of several other athletic franchises. In 1986, Chief Noc-A-Homa, the former drum-thumping mascot of Major League Baseball's the Atlanta Braves, was removed. The Cleveland Indians continue to employ a potentially offensive Native American mascot, Chief Wahoo.
Famous quotes containing the word chief:
“The necessary has never been man’s top priority. The passionate pursuit of the nonessential and the extravagant is one of the chief traits of human uniqueness. Unlike other forms of life, man’s greatest exertions are made in the pursuit not of necessities but of superfluities.”
—Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)