AKRON, Ohio – The University of Akron and Kent State University are showing how a one-time romance between mascots Zippy and Flash went sour — and created a rivalry between the neighboring schools.
Just before Valentine’s Day, to promote this year’s first match-up of the men’s basketball teams, the schools worked together to tell a love story between the kangaroo and golden eagle. Spoiler alert: It ends in heartbreak.
And like most love stories gone bad, there are two versions of exactly what happened.
Here’s Zippy and Flash’s stories:
The romance-turned-rivalry is the brainchild of Meghan Meeker, who handles social media at UA, the universities said.
She contacted her counterpart at Kent State, Nicole Carlone. Both thought a Zippy/Flash love story was a great way to play on the rivalry between the two schools.
They involved their respective communications colleagues and students — and Zippy and Flash — to ramp up school spirit at both universities.
Both schools have previewed the rivalry on Twitter. UA hosts the game on Friday and Kent State hosts a game March 3.
“What ‘really’ created UA & KSU’s rivalry? Our sweet Zippy was WRONGED! We’ll settle this on the court FRI,” the University of Akron tweeted.
Kent State tweeted: state said “How did KSU and Akron become rivals? We’ll settle this at the MACC on Friday, March 3!”
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