Every mascot for him/herself at game time.

Byline: Bob Welch / The Register-Guard

If you've been following March Madness, you realize the Big Question is not "Who will win our office pool?" or "Why is CBS showing more close-ups of the coaches' wives than the games themselves?"

The real question is: "What's up with the Stanford Tree?"

Only six weeks after the Stanford mascot was caught drinking inside her uniform during the Cal game, the Tree was ejected from Monday's Stanford-Florida State NCAA women's game for not leaving - no pun intended - the court at halftime in a timely manner.

I can already hear the drumbeat from Knee-Jerks wanting to ban all college sports mascots.

But relax. This is just a case of mascots being mascots.

Granted, Stanford's band was right in firing its sap-sucker after Incident One; nobody likes a drunk tree. But mascots are people, too. Put them in the limelight enough times and, yeah, some of them are going to act, well, like 21-year-old students hyped with the adrenaline of athletics.

If you can't laugh at Mascots Gone Wild, what can you laugh at?

Why it was just three years ago in Nashville that the Oregon Duck and Swoop, the University of Utah mascot, were ejected after fighting at halftime of a first-round NCAA game. Mal Williams, the student inside the Duck costume, told the Oregon Daily Emerald he was trying to protect the Duck cheerleaders, on whose dance territory the stilted Swoops allegedly was trespassing.

Never mind that the next day's Tennessean newspaper featured a photo of the headless Duck duking it out with a red-tailed hawk - sometimes a mascot's gotta do what a mascot's gotta do.

And lest the NCAA itself gets its shorts in a bunch over mascot misbehavior, it was only last month that a frog mascot representing the association itself - green with tufts of orange hair - did one back flip too many in a Columbia-Yale basketball game, slamming into Columbia Television equipment and doing $6,500 worth of damage.

Let's face it, mascots are entertainers, notorious risk-takers. (Didn't Michael Jackson accidentally set himself on fire during a Pepsi commercial?) And they're performing in arenas that fuel wild emotions.

There will always be mascot malfunctions. In 1994, Arizona's Wilbur Wildcat blew out a knee tackling Arkansas' Razorback in a Final Four game. In 2001, at the Rose Bowl, Oregon fans broke into a "Free the Duck" chant after UCLA officials escorted an allegedly misbehaving Duck off the field. (Lest we be accused of mascot bashing, let the record show that this year's Duck finished second nationally, to Texas State's BOKO the Bobcat, in the USA National Championships.)

And, of course, who can forget Oregon State's hard-luck Beaver mascot in 1995? In one football game, the mascot was slugged by a 6-foot-6, 330-pound California offensive tackle en route to the locker room after she bopped him on the head with an inflatable hammer. In another game, a 6-foot-5, 305-pound Arizona player punched Benny in the head.

Such violence is inexcusable - and would be even if the student inside Benny wasn't 5-foot-9 and 135 pounds. But you have to at least admire the gumption of Rhody the Ram, the Rhode Island mascot who finally snapped after seasons and seasons of watching the St. Joe's Hawk flap its wings incessantly during basketball games as a sign of "Never Die."

Rhody was ejected after slipping an inner tube over the Hawk, immobilizing the bird's wings.

Truth be known, college mascots are tame compared to their pro counterparts. The Miami Heat was sued for $50,000 - successfully - after its mascot, Burnie, dragged the wife of a Puerto Rico Supreme Court justice on court during a game.

And Don Jackson, coach of the International Hockey League's Cincinnati Cyclone, was pestered so badly by the Atlanta Knights mascot that he climbed over the glass and earned a 10-day suspension and $1,000 fine - for attacking Sir Slapshot.

So go easy on Stanford.

As of late, at least it's a non-violent Tree.