Don Horowitz '77 at his plant shop, holding the book "Touchdown, the Story of the Cornell Bear" by John Foote '74. Image: Provided.
Recent gift, crowdfunding site support Touchdown statue
Rendering of the planned Touchdown statue, which will be placed at the corner of Campus Road and Garden Avenue. Image: Provided.
At Cornell, the bear is everywhere: engraved on the walls of buildings, emblazoned on mugs and scarves, and leaping out from screens and scoreboards. But for Don Horowitz '77, the four, live black bear cubs (each named "Touchdown") that served as the university's unofficial mascot in 1915, 1916, 1919 and 1939 still have nowhere to call home, and he wants to fix that.
Horowitz recently made a gift of $10,000 in support of the Touchdown statue, which will be placed at the corner of Campus Road and Garden Avenue. Spearheaded by John Foote '74 and Joseph Thanhauser '71, the project is being funded entirely through private contributions, with a goal of raising $225,000 by 2015 to cover the cost of the bronze statue, landscaping and an endowment for its upkeep. To date, $180,000 has been raised, and a crowdfunding effort, "Bring Touchdown Home", to gather $25,000 in small gifts is also in progress.
"It's a tribute to the real bears," Horowitz says. "The statue will be a reminder of Touchdown's genesis and the reason why we have the bear."
An alumnus of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, a regular contributor to the Cornell Annual Fund and a co-owner of Wittendale's Florist and Greenhouses in East Hampton, New York, Horowitz describes himself as a Cornell history buff. He first learned about the bears through Foote's book "Touchdown, the Story of the Cornell Bear," and he decided to support the project after attending a presentation by the author.
"I felt good about donating to something tangible and close to my heart after just reading about it," he explains.
"I always encourage people to give to whatever area they care about, and I still donate money to the Annual Fund, but -- the way I look at it -- when the statue is finally in place it will be great to know that I helped pay for a paw or maybe an ear," Horowitz says with a laugh.