One Chainz: Exeter’s Lion Rampant (a Profile)

You see him through the stains on every Grill table. He’s there on the bumper sticker you tried to scrape off your grandmother’s car out of shame. Sometimes out of the corner of your eye you think he’s in your very room, until you realize it’s just your roommate. He’s the one and only Lion Rampant, but why is he our mascot? Early options for a heraldic creature to represent Exeter included the porcupine recumbent, the javelina peeved, the weasel napping, a piece of d-hall’s barbeque tofu and the woodchuck taking umbrage. It’s easy to see why the lion won out.

The lion logo is the perfect embodiment of the Exonian and therefore suitable to festoon overpriced t-shirts in the bookstore. Unlike most representations of the “King of the Jungle,” in which a lion is portrayed as a muscular, regal creature, the Exeter lion, malnourished from eating only lukewarm d-hall pasta and Grill cookies, has visible ribs. Instead of a flowing, golden mane, the Exeter lion has the thin, patchy scruff of an animal who has torn his hair out at 2 am trying to stretch a one and a half page idea onto pages 3 and 4, keeping in mind that every topic sentence should be a mini-thesis and no internal citations will be allowed, before B period. The blood-shot eyes and the lion’s frantic pose are familiar to anyone whose energy comes from Monster, Redbull, Ritalin and tepid d-hall coffee. Finally, the flying strands of broken chain remind us that even after we’ve graduated—or broken free—Exeter will always be dragging behind us, urging us be non sibi, show not tell, listen to learn, find an academic focus and express it to your college counsellor even though you’re passionless, and to donate generously to PEA.