January 21, 2026
Providence College's Student-Run Newspaper Since 1935
by Sarah Wolff ’28 and Dorothée Durivage ’28 on October 30, 2025
In 2013, the New Orleans Pelicans unveiled their new mascot, Pierre the Pelican. Fans were horrified, as they were expecting a fun and pleasant bird to represent the city’s NBA team, when in reality, they got a creature that seems to be plucked out of a fever dream. With its lack of teeth, huge beak, and that vacant, threatening stare, the original Pierre quickly became infamous. However, this fame did not stem from pumping up the crowd; it came from terrifying them. Within days of Pierre’s debut, social media ran wild with jokes, memes, and comparisons to horror movie villains. Unfortunately for the Pelicans, their attempt to create a new, festive mascot backfired, and Pierre’s realism was far too spooky. A huge part of what made Pierre so scary was his human-like features. Mascots are often cartoonish or exaggerated, like Who Dey the Bengal and Blaze the Trail Cat; however, Pierre existed in the middle ground—too humanlike to be cute but far too unnatural to be real. His forced, unsettling smile, combined with his giant, hollow eyes, make him look less like a basketball team’s mascot and more like an animatronic straight out of Five Nights at Freddy’s. The immediate backlash was so strong that the Pelicans’ organization was forced to act fast. Within only months of the unveiling, Pierre underwent what the team called “facial reconstruction surgery.” The redesign softened his features and gave him a more cartoonish look, the goal to begin with. His disturbing, bright red beak was replaced with a friendlier, soft yellow beak, and his eyes were made wider, taking away that previously haunting look. The result was overall a much more “kid-friendly” mascot, but the damage to Pierre’s reputation was already done. The OG Pierre remains the scariest sports mascot ever created.
We often hear that Providence College’s very own Friar Dom is the scariest mascot in college sports. However, there is another friar mascot in the world of professional sports which is arguably even scarier. That mascot is the San Diego Padres’ “Swinging Friar.” The one-of-a-kind mascot has been with the Padres since they were part of the minor leagues beginning in 1958 and moved to the majors with the team in 1969. The Padres have a friar representing them because of the Franciscan friars’ deep-rooted history in San Diego. Father Junípero Serra and Don Caspar de Portolá were two friars who founded the first Spanish colony in southern California. Furthermore, “Padre” is Spanish for “Father” or “Friar,” and the name stems directly from there. Their official team mascot is the “Swinging Friar,” and several of their team logos throughout history, including the current logo, feature a friar swinging a bat. The Padres’ Friar’s permanent smile and constant surprised expression give it its spooky look. It does not help that it tries to replicate the look of a human, but ten times bigger. The Swinging Friar’s attempt at a human face is very cartoon-looking, with a big emphasis on its chin. The fact that its chin accounts for one-third of its face contributes to it being in the lead for the scariest sports mascot in America. However, the mascot’s outfit is nothing to be scared about, as it is simply dressed as a friar with a tonsure, sandals, a dark hooded cloak, and a rope around the waist. This doesn’t seem to be enough to make all fans love the Swinging Friar the same way we love Friar Dom, which is a strong indicator that their mascot might be too scary, even for its fans.
