The Proudness of Plaid

I'll admit it - I'm proud to be a Carnegie Mellon alum. However, it's always been a bit strange that the school mascot is a "tartan". I mean... an inanimate object? However, if CMU adopted anything else, they wouldn't be able to use the following slogan that I recently came across on one of their sweatshirts (mental note - I must purchase one of these next time I'm in Pittsburgh):

(from http://www.cmu.edu/athletics)