This Sunday, Forward Madison FC revealed its official crest, which features a pink flamingo at its center. But why a flamingo? And what does it have to do with Madison?
On the morning of September 4, 1979, UW-Madison students walking up Bascom Hill in the heart of campus probably had to pinch themselves to make sure they weren’t dreaming. They may not have expected to see 1,008 plastic pink flamingo lawn ornaments, scattered haphazardly across the university’s front lawn, staring back down at them.
By mid-afternoon, the flamingos were gone, taken by students as souvenirs. But the legend they created lives on.
According to David Null, former Director of UW-Madison Archives, pranksters Jim Mallon and Leon Varjian – who had led their “Pail & Shovel” party to power in the university government – were responsible for the stunt.
“They put them up, as far as I know, during the night or very early in the morning,” Null said. “You see photos of people looking kind of befuddled by them. And people started taking them right away.
“People just grabbed them and took them.”
Dave Cieslewicz, who served as the mayor of Madison from 2003-2011, was a student at the time of the prank. He recalled the feeling of “silliness” the flamingos brought to Madison.
“It became such an iconic thing right away. There were pictures in all the papers, I think it got national press as far as I recall,” Cieslewicz said. “It was just fun. It was totally senseless. It was just flamingos on Bascom Hill. It was the very absurdity of it that made it so great.”
As the years passed by, Mallon and Varjian eventually left the university, and many of their pranks faded into the annals of history. Still, Madison never quite forgot about its pink flamingo party. According to Null, Madisonians began to adopt the image of a pink flamingo as a sort of representative of the city.
“It has become this ubiquitous symbol of Madison,” Null said. “[The flamingos] help give Madison this image of this fun, strange place that we like to think of Madison as being.”
When Cieslewicz was mayor, he even tried to put the flamingo onto his official lapel pin. In fact, in 2009, the City of Madison named the plastic pink flamingo its official bird. In Cieslewicz’s opinion, flamingos show Madison at its eccentric, unconventional best.
“Unintentionally, I think [Mallon and Varjian] sort of caught the vibe of this city, or at least the vibe of the way this city wants to be,” Cieslewicz said. “It embraces the feeling of ‘hey yeah, we know we’re different, we know we’re a little crazy, we like that.’”
So when Forward Madison FC set out to choose the protagonist that would best represent the club and its city, there was only one clear choice. According to Forward Madison Managing Director Peter Wilt, the pink flamingo will be a motif for the team as it is for the city.
“It reminds us that life, especially in Madison, should be fun and a bit irreverent,” Wilt said.
For Cieslewicz, there couldn’t be a more appropriate symbol.
“I think it’s perfect,” he said. “I think Madisonians will love it.”
