Case file 11-02. Subject: a university in San Francisco, a man in a green hat, and a colonialism problem solved by keeping the colonial name.

I've been in the tunnels a long time. I've seen rats evict a tenant from a storm drain and then paint his name over the door so nobody would notice the place changed hands. I thought that was a sewer move. Turns out it's a Jesuit one.

Here are the facts, per the New York Post and Breitbart. The University of San Francisco announced Friday that "The Don," its costumed mascot since 1932, will step aside at the start of the spring 2027 semester. The Don wears a pencil mustache and a green Spanish-style hat. He has patrolled the sidelines for 92 years without, as far as the record shows, colonizing anything bigger than a free T-shirt cannon.

The mascot honors Don Francisco de Haro, the first mayor of Yerba Buena before it became San Francisco. In 2022, USF's student government passed a resolution demanding his removal, arguing the character symbolized the exploitation of California's Indigenous people. A student petition backing it gathered more than 400 signatures.

Four hundred. Detectives, I've seen longer sign-up sheets for a fantasy football league. USF enrolls thousands of students. The petition could fit inside the student union with room left over for a vegan taco truck.

But it worked. The Don is out. A wolf is in.

Now here is the part of the case file I had to read three times. The teams will still be called the Dons.

Let me walk you through it. The problem was that the word "Don" and the man it honors were too colonial. The solution is to remove the man and keep the word. That's like a restaurant fixing a rat problem by firing the rat and keeping the restaurant named "Rat."

USF President Salvador Aceves explained the new mascot is "known for its intelligence, endurance and ability to work cooperatively in its pack." In the same statement he said, "At the same time, we will proudly remain the University of San Francisco Dons."

Proudly. They're proudly keeping the part they just apologized for.

So picture the new game-day experience. A wolf runs onto the court. The announcer says, "Here come your Dons!" A freshman asks what a Don is. Nobody is allowed to show him.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, families are paying private-university tuition. For that money, they now get a school that spent four years on a mascot task force and came out with a dog. A big dog, sure. Cooperative. Works in a pack. Exactly like a committee.

I tracked down a tunnel rat who once lived under the old Kezar Stadium. I asked him what he thought of the switch. "Down here we rename the tunnel when the tunnel changes," he said, chewing a cable. "Up there they change the tunnel and keep the name. That's how you know they went to college."

Case remains open. The Don is being retired after 92 years of service, the wolf starts in spring, and the name stays exactly where it was. Somewhere in a storm drain, a rat is painting over a door and nodding with professional respect.

The Demorat is satire. This article is a parody based on real news reports and is not meant to be taken as literal fact.

The real story that inspired this