Devils, Angels and Roses

Sparky, Arizona State University’s sun-devil mascot, has escorted the school’s teams to victory, and occasional defeat, for 42 years, but at leastfor the next month Sparky is under wraps at the university’s Sun Devil Stadium.

Pope John Paul II will visit Phoenix before his stop in Los Angeles next month, and will celebrate Mass in the university’s Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe. Meanwhile, the Walt Disney caricature of a gleeful little pitchfork-carrying devil that once dominated the stadium’s marquee has been replaced by a huge Pasadena rose, symbolizing the university’s Rose Bowl victory last January.

University officials say that the change has nothing to do with the Pope’s visit but that the marquee needed repainting and the university wants to publicize its bowl victory--eight months later. Despite student speculation to the contrary, the Roman Catholic Church did not pressure university officials to make this change, Jim O’Connell, the executive director of public events, says.

So while Los Angeles police and Secret Service officials will guard the Pope’s safety by hustling the homeless away from St. Vibiana’s Cathedral, the papal residence in Los Angeles, ASU has hidden its impish reminder of fire and brimstone from papal view under a giant red rose.

No doubt His Eminence is quite capable of handling both the homeless and athletic mascots, whether visible or not. The missions for the homeless will reopen after the visit. But what happens to the ASU marquee if the university does not win next year’s Rose Bowl or, worse yet, does not play in the Rose Bowl? Not to worry, O’Connell says. Regardless of the football season’s outcome, by January the marquee, rose and all, will give way to bulldozers making room for a new office building that will be built adjacent to Sun Devil Stadium--which, by the way, is next door to Sun Angel Stadium, home of track and field events.