AMHERST, Mass. -- Students and alumni at Amherst College soon could be rooting for the Hamsters. Hamsters was among the most popular nicknames given to a committee put together to come up with a new athletic mascot for the school. Trustees dropped Lord Jeffs last year partly because 18th-century British Gen. Jeffery Amherst suggested giving smallpox-infected blankets to Native Americans. The committee has winnowed a list of nearly 600 suggestions to 30 semifinalists.
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