Duke Dog for Captial One Bowl Write-In

Five years ago, a travesty on a scale that I can't describe occurred in the Capital One Mascot Bowl. The competition paired up two mascots each week and then fans voted. Duke Dog blew away the competition every week. Campaign websites and videos were created to endorse Duke Dog. It was a big deal. The voting was not even close. He went undefeated all 11 weeks (the next closest mascot went 6-5). Finally, the time came for the announcement of the winner (which obviously should have been Duke Dog given his overwhelming online victories). The winner of the 2004 Capital One Mascot Bowl: Monty, Montana's mascot. Apparently, the judges panel portion had outweighed the online portion, basically making the online portion useless.

Capital One wasn't aware of the backlash they would receive from cheating our mascot out of it's rightful position as champion. Within minutes, dozens of Facebook groups were created and some Captial One credit cards were even canceled. The JMU community (or Nation, if you will) was up in arms over this outrage. Over the coming months, and in many cases years, Capital One is still learning of the mistake it made. A recent alum who was a freshman at the time, says, "I called Pam Girardo, one of the directors in the mascot bowl, and left her a message about once a week for three months. Then, exactly one year after our humiliating defeat, I called her again and left her a message."

Unhappy with this reaction, Capital One was disinclined to offer us a chance to participate the next year. Of course, the year after they also decided to change the rules so that the online voting made up 100% of the decision on who the winner was. Then, in the Summer of 2009, JMU applied again to be in the Mascot Challenge. The JMU Athletics Department quickly went to work producing an awesome video to submit to Capital One. It turned out great and was sent in. Director of Athletics Marketing, Alyssa Gerlando described the process further, "Capital One sends out nomination packets every year for their mascot challenge. Unfortunately, Duke Dog did not make the cut, but that doesn’t mean all of our efforts were a waste. Fans are allowed to write in a mascot’s name, and the winner of the write-in vote will automatically qualify for next year’s challenge."

So here's your part in this whole debacle. We are being given the chance to decide for ourselves whether or not Duke Dog makes it in the Mascot Challenge next year. Part of this year's competition is a write-in section where you can write in your vote and the winner is automatically placed into next year's competition. A Facebook event has even been created to help organize people. So here's how to make our voice heard:

1. Go to http://www.capitalonebowl.com/writeIn/main
   
   
2. Click the "Go Vote" and vote for that week's mascot match-ups.
   
   
3. Create a Nickname and write in the code.
   
   
4. You will then be able to vote for DUKE DOG!!

Since the word has started to spread about the write-in vote, Duke Dog has jumped to the #1 spot! Keep up the voting and lets make this happen. If you don't vote, you never know what could happen... Gerlando was confident about the chances this year, "Duke Dog won the online vote in the 2004 competition. I have no doubt the JMU Nation will provide the support to do it again this year. JMU fans have tons of pride and love their mascot. I know we can make this happen."

And for those that stuck around to finish the article, here is a nice treat that was created during the 2004 campaign (make sure to explore the whole site): http://danwho.net/votedukedog/slander.php?id=1

GO DUKES!