Life University Athletics

While many believe the Running Eagle mascot might just be a playful and amusing mascot for Life University to standout among other institutions, the story has in an incredible connection to characteristics such as grit, leadership, and greatness – characteristics that are eminent in successful student-athletes.  

The story begins with a young woman born into the Blackfoot tribe under the name "Brown Weasel Woman." In tribes such as the Blackfoot and others, there was a familiar enough separation between gender expectations: men were fighters and hunters, women were caretakers and homemakers. Brown Weasel Woman would go on to be one of many American women who has battled such stereotypes by demonstrating their own excellence and leadership. 

According to the U.S. National Parks Service, the story of Brown Weasel Woman started with a fierce dedication both to her own family and to her community:

As she got older, she accompanied the men on buffalo hunts, even saving her father's life during a hunt when an enemy war party attacked them. When her father was killed in battle and her mother became ill, Brown Weasel Woman became the primary caretaker of the family. However, by taking a widow into her family to help with those responsibilities, she was again free to hunt the buffalo.

At one story goes, the Blackfoot tribe had a herd of horses, necessary for both hunting as well as defense, stolen by a rival tribe, and Brown Weasel Woman was determined to be among those to ride out and take back what was rightfully theirs 

One version of the story states that the leader of the war party told her to go back, but she refused. When he said that the war party would not continue unless she returned home, she told him to go ahead, and that she would retrieve the horses on her own. With that, the war party – including Brown Weasel Woman – continued on to get their tribe's horses back.  After finding the horses and leading them toward home, they stopped to camp for the night. Brown Weasel Woman stayed awake as a lookout, while the others slept. She spotted two Crow warriors attempting to steal back the horses. Stories conflict as to whether she killed one or both of the warriors, but the result was the same: she saved the herd. She eventually gained a reputation as a successful hunter and warrior.

These deeds and her continued service to those around her eventually earned her the new title of Pi'tamaka or "Running Eagle."  Pi'tamaka, a human still bound to the ground, had all of the pride, vision and skill of an eagle; that is what the moniker of Running Eagle is meant to connote, someone surpassing their limitations to such a degree that we need to find new metaphors and new symbols to describe them.  Pi'tamaka's willingness to work for and protect her community, as well as her leadership and her pursuit of greatness, makes her and her namesake an ideal figurehead for Life University, whose mission is to empower each student with the education, skills and values to maximize the perfection within.