Eliot Circular

Prez Gets Owl Fever

By Lauren Cooper ’16
Kroger with Owl

President Kroger catches owl fever during epic struggle in the Quad.
Photo by Cole Sprague

A furious fight erupted in the Quad in March as scores of students struggled for possession of the Doyle Owl in an exuberant melee that eventually engulfed President John Kroger.

As rival student factions vied for victory, Kroger dodged elbows, copies of the Iliad, and overzealous rugby players to plant a hand on this 300-pound slab of Reed history.

The chaos began when students discovered an owl near the Reed reactor. A frantic scrum took place as contenders wrestled for ownership until word filtered through that the object at the center of the mayhem was actually a decoy—one of two fakes planted to maximize confusion.

In fact, the “genuine” owl was lying in the Quad, where hordes of students converged in an ecstasy of guile and sweat as they attempted to secure the mascot. Eventually, two rival factions emerged, each attempting to drag the owl into the trunk of their own vehicle and speed away.

The Doyle Owl was originally snatched from an Eastmoreland lawn in the ’20s by a group of intrepid students from House F, later Doyle, and soon achieved the status of an icon. Since then it (or a replica) has been dangled from a bridge, been photographed in swimming pools, visited the New York World’s Fair, been taken to Disneyland, and been frozen in a block of ice.

The fracas in the Quad dragged on for several hours until the owl was finally captured. Its current roost remains unknown.