Collegiate Athletic Nicknames

[random]

For those who are interested, which i'm sure everyone is. The University of Maryland-Baltimore County Retrievers got their rather unique nickname because they wanted a unique nickname that didnt exist anywhere in college sports that had maryland ties. The name "Retrievers" was chosen for the Chesapeake Bay Retriever a breed of dog native to Maryland. The colors Black and Gold were chosen for their place on the Maryland state flag.

[rockchalk]

The alma mater used by UNC, UGA, Vandy et al. can be heard, of all places, in the movie "Dirty Dancing".  I don't know what scene - one night, my wife was watching it in the next room when I heard my alma mater playing.  I ran in and found her watching it, so apparently in the movie (toward the end?), someone's graduating from a fictitious school that also ripped off Cornell's alma mater. 

That freaked me out, because KU uses it too, and earlier this year I took my girlfriend to the KU/Mizzou game and as the Alma Mater was playing, she got this weird look on her face and said she knew that song. We got back in her car and she grabbed her Dirty Dancing soundtrack, and sure enough...

[Swashbuckler]

Iowahoo, I'm not sure why WCU and ECU share the same basic colors.....the 16 universities of the UNC system don't follow any kind of color "theme." According to the "official" history of ECU, which was founded as East Carolina Teachers College in 1907, "old Gold and Royal Purple" were selected by the students as the school colors in 1909. The sports teams were known as the "Teachers" until taking the name "Pirates" in 1934. The debate about the nickname apparently took place in the early 30's.

[dfffd61]

UTEP's alma mater is a redone version of the Marty Robbins song El Paso.

[BJ Sands]

Here's Missouri, if I remember the Summer Welcome spiel I listened three years ago:

In the 1850s, the city of Columbia was at risk of invasion (by either Kansans or roving criminals, it's one or the other) and the city put together a militia to protect itself. The militia's name: Missouri Tigers. I do not know when the name was adopted.

[pcgd]

For Illinois, the word Illini is derived from the words ILLInois and alumNI. Or that's what they are saying now. And it does make sense, because the Native American Tribe (actually it wasn't a tribe, it was a confederation of tribes) was the Illiniwek. Fighting was from a newspaper I believe.

For Carthage (yes its a D3 school) they got their name from their original location, Carthage, IL. The high school in Carthage is known as the Blueboys. As a counter, the college adopted the name Redmen. Over the years a native american logo was developed and everyone assumed the name was for Native Americans. (Why wouldn't they really?) In the 80s, after the women were called the Redmen for years, they women of carthage adopted the name Lady Reds. In 2005, the college had to change their nickname per the NCAA. So they went with Red Men. (Lady Reds was fine) The NCAA bought it and now it follows the original intent better.

[ZBoyer]

In a much smaller and less impressive way, Connecticut does the same. All of the Connecticut State schools are Blue and White to match the state.

UCONN

Western Connecticut

Southern Connecticut

Central Connecticut

Eastern Connecticut

Aha, incorrect...at least, anymore. WestConn now uses navy and gold as their official colors. But the other schools still use variations of blue and white.

As for UConn, the name came about after it changed from Storrs Agricultural College (or Connecticut Agricultural College, depending on the time period) in 1934. The team, up until then, was called the Aggies, but after it became the University of Connecticut, some witty individual contracted the initials and chose Huskies because the location reminded some of the Yukon Territory.

...Yeah, that's pretty boring and obvious, but I can't really spruce it up any, either.

[totc]

----------------------

The Cornell Songs

Alma Mater

Far above Cayuga's waters

There's an awful smell,

Some say it's Cayuga's waters,

I say it's Cornell ...

Fixed your post.