Chris Hutson had no idea she was doing anything that would endure past halftime, let alone for half a century. On the eve of Big Game 1975, Hutson, ’76, MS ’77, aided by her friend Jan Kraus Wolfe, ’76, MS ’77, pulled an all-nighter to craft a costume out of three reams of red construction paper, a scuba harness, a Styrofoam cone, and various random supplies. By lore, the last staple went in at 4:30 a.m.
Behold, the first Stanford Tree.
The concept of a tree mascot had originated two weeks earlier among members of the Band, who wanted to spoof the very idea of mascots. The Indian had been discontinued in 1972, and a student referendum on its replacement was drawing near, with “Robber Barons” an early favorite. Band members wanted their own candidate. They just needed a sufficiently inane idea to rally around. The answer came to seniors Bob Tiffany, ’76, and Eric Strandberg, ’76, on their drive to the USC game. “What could be a more absurd idea for a mascot than an essentially immovable, ubiquitous object?” Strandberg recalls.
‘What could be a more absurd idea for a mascot than an essentially immovable, ubiquitous object?’
Thus ensued plans for a Big Game halftime pageant featuring a tree queen on a wooden platform, laureled wood nymphs, and a Charlie Brown–esque Christmas tree on the back of a golf cart. And so it might have transpired if Hutson hadn’t heard the plans and taken it upon herself to create something more animated. A studious senior with eyes on veterinary school, Hutson recalls going to just one football game in her previous three years. But she thought Robber Barons was an insult to Stanford history and that a tree would make for an honest, forthright mascot. Plus, she liked to boogie. “I’m a person where I hear the music, I want to dance,” she says.
Her debut surprised the Band, but hardly tilted Stanford off its axis. Two weeks later, students voted for Robber Barons (and the administration ignored that vote). Trees—plural—finished third. At that point, Hutson’s costume should have gone into the woodchipper. But she’d had a blast and asked to come back. The Band was game.
Perhaps the most important thing Hutson did as the Tree was pass the costume to Robert Siegel, ’76, MA ’77, MD ’90, a conga drum player in the Band (and these days, a teaching professor of microbiology and immunology), ensuring the Tree would endure. Fifty years and 47 Trees in, the mascot—still unofficial—is firmly planted in Stanford culture.
Early in her career, Hutson kept her Tree-ness on the down-low. It didn’t seem in keeping with her role as a provider of veterinary care. These days, it’s quick off her lips. “Now that I’m retired, I tell people all the time.”
Sam Scott is a senior writer at Stanford. Email him at sscott3@stanford.edu.
