College nickname changes

[Chiefster2000]

I was thinking of what colleges have changed their nicknames and I found this list. Can anyone think of any others?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unive...e_United_States

List of university and college nickname changes in the United States

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is a List of university and college nickname changed in the United States.

Adams State Indians, now the "Grizzlies"

Arkansas State Indians, now the "Red Wolves". Previous nicknames include "Aggies", "Gorillas", and "Warriors".

Carlisle Indians, a school for American Indians that was a college football power in the early 1900s

Chowan Braves, reverted to "Hawks" in 2006

Carthage Redmen, reverted to the "Red Men"

Cumberland Indians, now the Cumberlands "Patriots" Previously known as Cumberland College until 2005, when it became the University of the Cumberlands. The nickname change came earlier.

Dartmouth Indians, disused since the 1970s in favor of continuing existing nickname, "Big Green"

Dickinson State Savages, renamed the "Blue Hawks" in 1972

Eastern Michigan Hurons, now the "Eagles"

Eastern Washington Savages, now the "Eagles"

IUP Indians, renamed the "Crimson Hawks" in 2006

Louisiana-Monroe Indians, now the "Warhawks"

Marquette Warriors, became the "Golden Eagles" in 1994

UMass Redmen, became the "Minutemen" in 1972 (According to the University, "Redmen" and "Redwomen" referred to the uniforms worn by the athletic teams. It was changed to "Minutemen" and "Minutewomen" out of sensitivity to American Indians.)

MCLA Mohawks, today the "Trailblazers"

Miami Redskins, in mid-1997, officially changed their names to the "RedHawks"

Mississippi Flood, changed to Rebels

Midwestern State Indians, changed to Mustangs

Nebraska Wesleyan Plainsmen, today the "Prairie Wolves"

Oklahoma City University Chiefs, now the "Stars"

Quinnipiac Braves, became the "Bobcats" in 2002

St. Bonaventure Brown Indians and Brown Squaws, renamed the "Bonnies" in 1979

St. John's Redmen, became the "Red Storm" in 1995, to be gender-neutral and to avoid any appearance of racism. St. John's website indicates that the name did not refer to American Indians, but to the school color, a bright cardinal red.

Simpson Redmen and Lady Reds, renamed the "Storm" in 1992

Southeast Missouri State Indians and Otahkians, renamed the "Redhawks"

Southeastern Oklahoma State Savages, renamed "Savage Storm" in 2006

Seattle University Chieftains, now the "Redhawks"

Southern Colorado Indians, renamed the ThunderWolves in 1995. It is currently Colorado State University-Pueblo, the nickname change came earlier.

Southern Nazarene Redskins, now the "Crimson Storm"

Springfield College Chiefs, now the "Pride"

Stanford Indians, now known as the Stanford "Cardinal" (singular - for the school color, a shade of red)

Stonehill Chieftains, today the "Skyhawks"

Syracuse University Orangemen and Orangewomen, indigenous to Ireland, renamed "Orange" in 2004

University of Central Florida Golden Knights, renamed Knights in 2007.

Virginia Tech Fighting Gobblers, originally the "Fighting Gobblers" but its nickname gradually transitioned into Hokies.

[edit] List of changes as a result of college or university name change or merger

Case Scientists & Rough Riders, Scientist was used from 1918-1938 and Rough Riders was used from 1930-1971 when changed to Case Western Reserve University and became the Spartans.

Fenn College Foxes, changed to Cleveland State University in 1965 and became the Vikings.

Western Reserve Pioneers & Red Cats, Pioneers used from 1921-1928 and the Red Cats used from 1928-1971 when changed to Case Western Reserve University and became the Spartans.

Oklahoma A&M Aggies, changed to Oklahoma State University in 1957 and became the Cowboys.

[Cujo]

Marquette Warriors, became the "Golden Eagles" in 1994

Let's not forget they became the "Gold" for about a week back in 2005.

Also, not mentioned on Wikipedia's list was Hofstra's transition from the "Flying Dutchmen" to the "Pride".

[tBBP]

Nice find.

A good many of these I've never heard of, honestly.

Fighting Gobblers? Wow...but then, that also would explain why and/or how the school came about using the likeness of a turkey as its mascot.

As far as UCF goes, I really didn't see what was wrong with "Golden Knights", especially if you can have Golden Eagles (Southern Miss and now Marquette), Golden Bears (Cal), and Golden Panthers (FIU, I believe). It's their uniform package that can use some redoing. (Why do I sniff a concept coming?)

The Mississippi Flood thing absolutely kils me. I mean, wow..."Flood"??? But then, some people are still nitpicking about the current nickname "Rebels", so I guess Ole Miss can't win, now can they...

...and I don't know why it's taken me THIS long to make sense of Stanford's nickname "the Cardinal", singular. The color... *FACEPALM*

[footballfiji]

Nice find.

A good many of these I've never heard of, honestly.

Fighting Gobblers? Wow...but then, that also would explain why and/or how the school came about using the likeness of a turkey as its mascot.

As far as UCF goes, I really didn't see what was wrong with "Golden Knights", especially if you can have Golden Eagles (Southern Miss and now Marquette), Golden Bears (Cal), and Golden Panthers (FIU, I believe). It's their uniform package that can use some redoing. (Why do I sniff a concept coming?)

The Mississippi Flood thing absolutely kils me. I mean, wow..."Flood"??? But then, some people are still nitpicking about the current nickname "Rebels", so I guess Ole Miss can't win, now can they...

...and I don't know why it's taken me THIS long to make sense of Stanford's nickname "the Cardinal", singular. The color... *FACEPALM*

The funnier thing is that the Gobblers nickname started as a nickname for a players at VPI:

The origin of the term "Gobblers" is disputed, with one story claiming it was coined in the early 1900s as a description of how student athletes would "gobble" up their more than ample servings of food

But "Hokie" as nickname never meant Turkey, originally. It was just a made up word:

The origin of the word "Hokie" has nothing to do with a turkey. It was coined by O. M. Stull (class of 1896), who used it in a spirit yell he wrote for a competition.

Hoki, Hoki, Hoki, Hy.

Techs, Techs, V.P.I.

Sola-Rex, Sola-Rah.

Polytechs - Vir-gin-ia.

Rae, Ri, V.P.I.

Stull later said that he made up the word as an attention-grabber. Though he may not have known it, "Hokie" (in its various forms) has been around at least since 1842. According to Johann Norstedt, now a retired Virginia Tech English professor, "[Hokie was] a word that people used to express feeling, approval, excitement, surprise. Hokie, then, is a word like 'hooray,' or 'yeah,' or 'rah.'"

But why the Turkey?

Fred Meade, a local resident chosen by the student body to serve as the school's mascot, had a large turkey pull him in a cart at a football game in 1913. The school's president halted the cart pulling after one game because he thought it was cruel to the turkey. Meade continued to parade his mascot

My favorite part of the story is that years later, according to legend, some Virginia Legislators, who were grads of UVA, VPI's rival school, passed legislation, officially changing the definition of "Hokie" to mean, "a castrated Turkey".

Also, instead of push-ups, when Virginia Tech scores:

the VT cheerleaders carry out a bench and weights for the HokieBird to perform bench presses. He does one press for every point VT has scored. Sometimes, in lieu of bench presses, the HokieBird has done situps or pushups.

[Herk]

Nebraska was the Bugeaters before being renamed the Cornhuskers

[CMUBrent]

Central Michigan was known as the Dragons and the Bearcats before being renamed Chippewas in 1942.

[baseballking99]

stony brook seawolves was the patriots before 94 i think

[burgundy]

Notre Dame started as the Catholics, and then changed to Ramblers before settling on Fighting Irish.

[otherwilds]

Tennessee-Martin Skyhawks, formerly the Pacers

[dfwabel]

McMurray University (Abeline, TX) dropped "Indians" in favor of no nickname at all.

[oz615]

Belmont University was called the Rebels before adopting their current Bruins name

[winghaz]

It's funny to think of Massachusetts as anything but the Minutemen, even though the nickname is relatively young. Minutemen is just perfect for Massachusetts.

Alas, it seems that Fighting Sioux won't be along at the University of North Dakota. When or if it does go, I sure hope there would a a proper replacement. My favorite would be Fighting Norse.

[lbr218]

The University of West Georgia:

In 1996- Name change from West Georgia College to State University of West Georgia

2005- Name change from State University of West Georgia to the University of West Georgia

2006- Team name change from UWG Braves to UWG Wolves.

[leopard88]

Lehigh University from approx. 1986 to present --

Engineers --> Packers --> Brown and White --> Engineers (again, IIRC) --> Mountain Hawks

Or, for simplicity, they can be called the Brown and White Mountain Packing Engineer Hawks.

Also, Colgate Univ. changed from Red Raiders to Raiders approx. 5 years ago.

[Natsfan36]

Nebraska was the Bugeaters before being renamed the Cornhuskers

they were also the hawkeyes and the Mankilling Mastodons as well

[Bleujayone]

I know it was already listed, but there's a funny story behind it.

Stanford University was originally known as the Indians. But in 1981 the school opted to have the nickname changed. The students overwhelmingly voted for the new nickname to be the "Thunderchickens", but the horrified school board and alumni committee overrode the vote 24 hours later and decided on "Cardinal" after the school's main color.

Pity, I think I like "Thunderchickens" better. I can just imagine what THAT logo might have been like.

[flasah]

Iowa State was known as the Cardinals until 1895:

"Weather in the state of Iowa during the summer and early fall of 1895 included an unusually large number of what were then referred to as cyclones. On Sept. 29 of that season, an underdog Iowa State football squad played at Northwestern. After building a commanding 30-0 halftime lead, the Cardinals (as ISU?s teams were then named), went on to post a shocking 36-0 rout of the Wildcats. The Chicago Tribune?s headline read ?Struck by a Cyclone.? The account in the Tribune reported that Northwestern might as well have tried to play football with an Iowa cyclone as with the team it met yesterday. At the end of 50 minutes, the big husky farmers from Iowa?s Agricultural College had rolled up 36 points.? Since that famous gridiron victory, Iowa State?s athletics teams have been known as the Cyclones."

[burgundy]

Iowa State was known as the Cardinals until 1895:

"Weather in the state of Iowa during the summer and early fall of 1895 included an unusually large number of what were then referred to as cyclones. On Sept. 29 of that season, an underdog Iowa State football squad played at Northwestern. After building a commanding 30-0 halftime lead, the Cardinals (as ISU?s teams were then named), went on to post a shocking 36-0 rout of the Wildcats. The Chicago Tribune?s headline read ?Struck by a Cyclone.? The account in the Tribune reported that Northwestern might as well have tried to play football with an Iowa cyclone as with the team it met yesterday. At the end of 50 minutes, the big husky farmers from Iowa?s Agricultural College had rolled up 36 points.? Since that famous gridiron victory, Iowa State?s athletics teams have been known as the Cyclones."

Well that explains their mascot. I always wondered about that.

[illwauk]

My school has a carefully convoluted identity.

Milwaukee Normal School Normals

Milwaukee State Teachers College ("Milwaukee State") Green Gulls

-Wisconsin Normal School System becomes Wis. State Teachers College System

Wisconsin State College-Milwaukee ("Milwaukee State") Green Gulls

-WSTCS becomes Wisconsin State College System

Wisconsin State University-Milwaukee ("Milwaukee State") Green Gulls

-WSCS becomes Wisconsin State University System

UW-Milwaukee Cardinals

-Drops out of the WSUS to join the UW system and adopts the Badgers colors (cardinal/white) and cream.

UW-Milwaukee Golden Panthers

-Colors changed to gold and black and nickname changed to Panthers in 1965 upon the founding of UW-Green Bay and UW-parkside. The UW system absorbed the rest of the WSU schools in 1971.

UW-Milwaukee Panthers

-"Golden" is dropped from the nickname sometime in the 1970's. The "official" athletic identity for the school has gone from "UW-Milwaukee" to "UWM" to (currently) "Milwaukee," but to the national media we've always been "Wisconsin Milwaukee."

I also remember reading in a program a few years ago that UWGB was originally the "Bay Badgers" before they became the "Phoenix."

[FiddySicks]

...and I don't know why it's taken me THIS long to make sense of Stanford's nickname "the Cardinal", singular. The color... *FACEPALM*

Funniest part of all that is there is a high school in San francisco called Lowell high (where my mother went), and they followed Stanford's scheme and were the Lowell Indians. Right after they changed to Cardinal, they ditched copying Stanford and began copying the Arizona Cardinals.