It was a tragic death. Thousands of people gathered tearfully to see their hero for the final time, and thousands more who were unable to attend had him in their thoughts.

They knew the death was coming, and had tried their utmost to prevent it — but even though the man had lived a long life, they were not ready to let him go.

So it might surprise you, after reading this overly dramatic opening paragraph, that the dying man in question wasn’t even a real person: it was Chief Illiniwek, mascot of the University of Illinois Fighting Illini.

The Chief danced for the last time in February of this year at a U of I basketball game. His death came as a result of the NCAA effectively banning the use of all “hostile and abusive” Native American imagery by its member schools. However, there is still quite a bit of controversy surrounding teams using Native American mascots and logos, particularly around pro teams like the Cleveland Indians of the MLB and the Washington Redskins of the NFL. (Can you imagine a team named the Whiteskins or the Blackskins? Didn’t think so.)

Now this is all very interesting, but what does it have to do with Stanford? Interestingly, we were not always the Stanford Cardinal. From 1930 to 1972, we were actually the Stanford Indians. This was very surprising to me when I found out.

How could Stanford — a school that prides itself on diversity and tolerance, a school where cultural events and groups abound — have had such an ostensibly intolerant mascot for so long?

I suppose, though, that it is better to consider that we did away with the mascot on our own, decades before the NCAA imposed the ban, rather than dwell on the fact that we had an offensive mascot for 42 years. Even more impressive, the movement to do away with the Indian was student-initiated.

In 1972, a group of 55 Native American Stanford students brought the “insult” the mascot carried to the attention of then-President Richard Lyman. The ASSU Senate voted 18-4 to drop the Indian mascot, and Lyman agreed. In fact, to this day we still do not have an official mascot. This is more than made up for, though, by the fact that we have the coolest unofficial mascot in the land — who doesn’t love the Tree?

Our lovable tree aside, the question remains: how could a bunch of college students recognize that their mascot was offensive four decades ago, yet the businessmen who run professional sports teams like the Redskins still haven’t changed their mascots?

One issue is tradition. In many cases, fans have spent their entire lives rooting for their favorite teams. Of course, changing a team’s nickname does not make the team any different, nor does it negate all of the team’s past accomplishments while using the old name. However, this sentimental aspect still persists; see the first paragraph of this column for proof.

Another claim is that Indian mascots can be used to honor Native Americans. This may be true in some cases, but certainly not all.

Let’s take Chief Wahoo, the Cleveland Indians’ grinning Native American symbol. If he’s honoring Native Americans, there must be an alternate definition for the word “honor” that includes both caricaturing and domesticating. Unfortunately, I haven’t gotten the memo on that one yet.

Overall, there is not much we can do about this. There have been many protests and lots of publicity surrounding teams using Native American imagery, but the pro leagues do not seem to have any intention of creating an NCAA-like ban. Individually, owners will have to realize that tradition only means so much.

Actually, you might even find more success with a new nickname — looking at the list of recent Director’s Cup winners over the last decade, it seems like it’s worked out all right for us.