WESTWOOD — UCLA students watched with curiosity over the past several weeks as the body language of Joe Bruin, the school’s lovable mascot who attends campus sporting events, has begun to grow steadily more despondent and sad.
“His movements are less animated now and sometimes he just stares off into space for long stretches of time,” reports Natalie Fry, a second-year who frequently attends the games. “When we score a point and everyone cheers, he’ll snap out of it and dance around a little bit, but even then it’s pretty half-assed. You can tell his heart isn’t in it.”
Football player Thomas Foley adds that much of the seemingly morose mascot’s activity at sports games now consists of pacing the yard lines, slouching, with his head hanging down to his chest.
“It doesn’t do a whole lot for morale,” Foley commented, referring to the mascot’s physical expressions of total apathy. “Why bother trying if Joe Bruin himself doesn’t give a shit if we win or lose?”
Foley also reports that at a recent game, the costumed bear just sat against the wall with his face in his paws for twenty minutes. At press time, coaches discussed taking Joe Bruin to CAPS while others suggested the possibility of staging an intervention with the rest of the UC system’s mascots.