HUDSON, N.Y. -- Three weeks and tens of thousands of votes later, Rip Van Winkle of Columbia-Greene Community College has been crowned the 2019 SUNY Mascot Madness Champion.
Rip Van Winkle is now the first community college mascot to ever win the top spot in SUNY Mascot Madness, having defeated Walter T. Wildcat of SUNY Polytechnic Institute in the final round.
Rip leads C-GCC’s athletic teams, the Twins, and serves as a symbol of the twin counties of Columbia and Greene, and the Catskill mountain range that connects them. His legend began with a short story written in 1819 by Washington Irving, in which he fell into an enchanted sleep for 20 years, after playing a game of nine-pin with the ghosts of Captain Henry Hudson.
More information about Rip's big win can be found at the SUNY Big Ideas blog:
https://blog.suny.edu/2019/04/our-2019-mascot-madness-champion-is/