College School Mascots Trivia Quiz

During the American Civil war Missouri was a border state, and the town of Columbia was constantly threatened by guerilla bands that operated in the western part of the state. You may have heard of Bloody Bill Anderson? His band was especially feared.

So a home guard was organized around Columbia and was known as the Missouri Tigers. When the University of Missouri football team began in 1890 the nickname Tigers was chosen to honor the home guard, and the name Truman was chosen in a contest to honor, of course, Harry S Truman.

On October 7, 1914, the University of Cincinnati hosted a football game. One of the star players on the team was named Leonard Baehr. During the game one of the cheerleaders began a chant, "They may be Wildcats, but we have a Baehr-cat on our side". The University of Cincinnati won the game and the campus newspaper ran the story and a cartoon with a bear cat chasing a wild cat. The name was not used again until 1919, but after that it stuck!

In case you didn't known, a biuturong, or bearcat, is a real animal that is native to south and southeast Asia. It is really not a bear or a cat, and is more related to civets. While the University of Cincinnati Bearcat has no official name, it has been reported that sometimes the Cincinnati Zoo brings a bearcat named Lucille to the games.

The story is that in 1899 some students took in a stray bulldog, who subsequently barked loud enough to warn them when their house caught fire. Unfortunately, the dog perished in the fire; its remains were buried somewhere on campus, although the exact location of the grave is unknown.

After that a stuffed dog was used as a mascot until 1930, when a live bulldog was given to the school. He was named Tech 1, and since then there have been many other Techs.

The University of Nevada was founded in 1896, and its teams were originally known as the Sagebrushers. Sometime during the 1920-21 school term a reporter described the team as a "pack of wolves", and the mascot was changed to Desert Wolves. The name Wolves was chosen by students in 1923 and the teams have been known as the Wolf Pack ever since.

Colorado State University was opened in 1879 as the Agricultural College of Colorado. By 1935 its name was changed to Colorado State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, or CAM. Can you see where I'm going with this? In 1954 CAM the Ram became the school's mascot.

The school became Colorado State University in 1957, but its mascot is still the CAM the Ram. If you have ever visited or read about the area around Ft. Collins, Colorado, then you know why!

The story is not well documented, however, what is told is that shortly after the school was founded in 1906 a local Gainesville businessman decided to sell pennants to the students to promote school spirit. As you may know, alligators are native to Florida, and since the mascot was not used by any other school at the time, he decorated the pennants with alligators. By 1911 the football team was known as the Florida Gators! In the 1950s the school used live alligators as their mascot, but in recent years Albert and Alberta Gator, costumed versions, are the school's official mascots.

Apparently there were many settlers from Massachusetts who eventually made their way to Oregon. They were descendants of a group known as Webfoots, who were both fishermen and Revolutionary War heroes.

By 1932 students at the University of Oregon officially adopted the name Webfoots, and choose a web-footed creature as a mascot, Puddles, a duck that looked quite a bit like Walt Disney's Donald. As it turned out, the athletic director of the university was friends with Disney, who game the school permission to use the image in 1947. During the 1970s Puddles' name was changed to Donald!

In 1883 the University of Texas in Austin was officially opened, and by 1900 its teams were known as the Varsity, which is an abbreviated form of the word university. By then some sports writers had already started calling the team the Longhorns. I mean, the longhorn cattle trade was essential to the development of Texas.

But - the name did not officially stick until 1913 when a businessmen gave members of the football members blankets that were embossed with the name Longhorns, along with an image. In 1917 fans were introduced to a live longhorn mascot named Bevo, however, a dog named Pig was chosen instead, so it apparently took a while for the longhorn to become the official mascot. Nevertheless, in 2016 the school celebrated the 100th anniversary of Bevo. Yes, the numbers there don't quite work out.

Did you know that Minnesota is officially known as the Gopher State? Back in 1857 there was an argument over legislation that would provide for the building of a railroad. A political cartoon emerged that showed the main proponents of the legislation with gopher heads, pulling a train.

The University of Minnesota adopted the mascot by the 1920s, but did not become the Golden Gophers until 1934 when a newscaster used then name to describe the team because of their gold uniforms. The mascot has been known as Goldy since the 1960s.

Believe it or not, a Nittany lion is actually a mountain lion. Penn State is located near Mt. Nittany, a name that is probably native American in origin. Records show that there was a fair number of mountain lions killed in the area back in the day.

In 1904 a student, embarrassed that Penn State didn't have a mascot, made up a story about how a Nittany Lion could defeat the Princeton Bengals because a lion is stronger than a tiger! By 1907 the same student wrote an article in the campus news imploring the students to become Nittany Lions - "Why cannot State have a kingly, all-conquering Lion as the eternal sentinel?"