Michigan State University to drop “Sparty” after statue protest

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Today, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer (or Queen Gretchen as she’s ‘affectionately’ called by some of her constituents) announced that she has ordered Michigan State University (MSU) to no longer use Spartans for its nickname and Sparty as its mascot.

Furthermore, the Queen ordered the Michigan National Guard to remove the 9 foot bronze statue of Sparty from campus grounds.

This follows numerous complaints from students at rival University of Michigan.  According to their spokesperson, “Spartans owned slaves! How can something like that be tolerated in this day and age?  And if that’s not offensive enough, then it’s a statue of a white man.  This is indicative of the patriarchy!”

Legend has it that fans of the University of Michigan’s football team, The Michigan Woverines, defaced Sparty back in the 1960s by painting him blue and maize.

Every year since, members of the Michigan State University marching band take part in “Sparty watch” the night before a game against their rivals to prevent attacks on their beloved mascot.  But sadly such a watch was no defence against this latest attack.

“It’s obvious that our rivals are only making these spurious complaints as a ploy to get rid of Sparty once and for all.  Any time we try and point this out though, we get shouted down as ‘bigots’,” sighs one member of the Sparty watch group.

Despite Gretchen Whitmer being an alumni of MSU she defended her decision, “If I don’t take the statue down, then they’ll be a mob of students who will protest around the Spartan statue and that will accelerate the spread of COVID-19.”

As an alternative mascot, Gretchen did not think a cow would make for a good choice. While Michigan State was started as an agricultural college and has sometimes been derisively called “Moo U”, Queen Gretchen thought a bull might be more appropriate.

However, the more prissy members of Spartan alumni thought that that could present a problem at sporting events with half the crowd yelling “Bull!” while the other half yelled “Winkle!”

Reporter: Chuck Rivetto

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