The University has not had an official mascot since the removal of Chief Illiniwek in 2007. A recent movement championing the adoption of the belted kingfisher as a mascot is gaining momentum. In February, a referendum asking if students supported the University adopting a mascot appeared on the student election ballot.
The Certified Student Election results released Friday. The non-binding question passed with 3,327 votes — 76.36% of voters — favoring an adoption.
Averhy Sanborn, junior in LAS, is the founder and president of a new RSO, the King’s Guard. The RSO is in charge of popularizing and defending the kingfisher.
“We wanted to formalize the movement that we have on campus that has existed for several years now,” Sanborn said of the organization.
The kingfisher’s journey to mascot began in 2017 when then-sophomore at the University, Spencer Wilken-Hulsey, and her friends witnessed a protest against the Chief’s appearance at Homecoming parades.
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“This was big,” Wilken-Hulsey said. “Everyone’s eyes are on it. We were like: ‘We got to fix this problem.’”
Wilken-Hulsey noticed the naturally orange and blue belted kingfisher resides in Illinois. Then, she created designs for a new mascot, which went viral on Reddit. In 2020, a referendum on the student election ballot passed in support of her idea.
Later that year, the Faculty Senate supported the kingfisher’s adoption. There were 105 votes in favor and two against, with four senators abstaining. Since then, students have built the kingfisher’s costume and organized the King’s Guard. However, the University has not moved to adopt an official mascot.
Wilken-Hulsey is now a doctoral student studying physics at the University and remains a dedicated proponent of her original idea.
“Belted kingfishers are birds that are native to waterways in Champaign and Champaign County and Illinois as a whole,” Wilken-Hulsey said. “They’re a midwestern feature.”
Sanborn and Wilkin-Hulsey noted the proposed mascot is a female, as the orange belt only appears on female belted kingfishers. They also highlighted the symbolic physical strength and international presence of the bird as qualifications for becoming the mascot.
“There are other variants of kingfishers all over the world that are also all orange and blue,” Sanborn said. “The University of Illinois is a huge international school, and so it’s sort of a nice reminder of … it’s our bird, no matter where you live, no matter where you come from.”
Proponents of the kingfisher praise it for being “the mascot for everyone,” and prioritize its attendance at a variety of student activities. Additionally, becoming an official mascot of the University would allow the kingfisher’s appearance at larger sporting events.
“We do still want to be the mascot for everyone,” Sanborn said. “But being able to physically be in those stadiums in those spaces for big games, that would be one of the biggest and most … legitimate changes that would come with the adoption.”
Wilken-Hulsey commented on the importance of having a mascot.
“It’s kind of twofold,” Wilken-Hulsey said. “It’s fun. It’s a good time … It’s a good source of school spirit. More importantly, it would be poor of me to neglect the considerable history that our campus has with mascots and imagery.”
The University retired appearances of Chief Illiniwek at games in 2007, following an NCAA warning that the image was “hostile and abusive.” However, support for the Chief remains among some students and alumni.
“I think one of the reasons why we don’t have a mascot yet is partially because of fear on the side of the administration that they’ll lose funding from alumni who are still very tied to the previous mascot,” Sanborn said. “I think that’s an unfortunate way of looking at things because I think it assumes that alumni are incapable of change.”
Wilken-Hulsey initially anticipated receiving pushback from alumni who favored the Chief as the Illini’s mascot. Despite this, she said her team has mostly received support.
“We are not fighting something that happened before some of our members were even born,” Wilken-Hulsey said, referring to the use of the Chief. “That decision has been made. We are just the next step.”
The King’s Guard will debut a new kingfisher costume at an event on March 27, from 4-6 p.m. in the Siebel Center for Design gallery.
The group welcomes anyone interested to attend their general meetings. The meetings are held every other Monday from 5-6 p.m. in the Astronomy Building.
“Having a friendly face around campus that you have a strong and positive association with regarding the school … I just can’t see anything bad about that,” Sanborn said. “So I really don’t see why we shouldn’t have the mascot, and for that matter, why we shouldn’t have the kingfisher.”
