Athletic nickname
Encyclopedia
The athletic nickname, or equivalently athletic moniker, of a university
or college
within the United States
is the name officially adopted by that institution for at least the members of its athletic
team
s. Typically as a matter of engendering school spirit
, the institution either officially or unofficially uses this moniker of the institution's athletic teams also as a nickname
to refer to people associated with the institution, especially its current student
s, but also often its alumni, its faculty
, and its administration
as well. This practice at the university and college tertiary higher-education level has proven so popular that it extended to the high school secondary-education level in the USA and in recent years even to the primary-education level as well.
, UIC Flames
, Tulane Green Wave
, the school wants to emphasize the instillation of fear
of losing athletic competititons to the institution's teams, such as through an especially fierce or stealthy animal. When the school chooses an animal as its athletic nickname, usually in the plural or as a collective noun for a group of that animal, then typically, the school has that animal (in the singular) as its mascot
, either specifically named with a proper noun or generically referred to without a proper noun. Examples: Michigan Wolverines
, Oregon Ducks
, Princeton Tigers
, Wisconsin Badgers
, California Golden Bears
.
; religious designation, such as saints; or other groupings of people. A portion of athletic monikers that fall into this collection category started originally as derogatory epithet
s from others, but as an act of defiance, the school embraced the term as a rallying cry to overcome the term's negative origin. Because a collection is hard to represent or icon
ify, when a school chooses a collection as its athletic nickname, the school typically chooses a related but different mascot
that symbolizes that collection. Examples: Notre Dame Fighting Irish
, Oklahoma Sooners
, Purdue Boilermakers
, Illinois Fighting Illini
heroic person as their official athletic nickname. This person may be a graduate of the school who is viewed as embodying the school's mission or an archetypal person who is symbolic of the school's area, such as the West Virginia University
Mountaineer. In religiously-affiliated schools, this person may be a historical person in the religion who has been bestowed an official designation in that religion, such as a saint
in Roman Catholic or Orthodox Christianity.
s were at one time widely-popular athletic monikers, especially for schools that adopted them in the nineteenth century or early twentieth century. In recent years, Native American organizations have protested the unlicensed use of likenesses of native Americans related to team names, team logo
s, athletic monikers, cheerleaders, and cheering techniques. The granting of overtly-expressed written licenses by native American organizations to use likenesses of Native Americans in these ways is rare, although not unheard of. In one notable example, two major groups of the Seminole
nation, the Seminole Tribe of Florida and Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, have expressly given Florida State University
permission to use the nickname "Seminoles" and certain Seminole imagery. Central Michigan University
has a similar arrangement with the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe to use the name "Chippewas".
Because of protests from Native American organizations, some schools have promptly changed their athletic moniker and mascot and cheering practices without significant objection once the issue was raised, especially if such offense toward a group of people was viewed as incompatible with that school's stated mission or if the threat of legal action was too burdensome. Other schools or their student body have defiantly defended their use of Native American likenesses, especially if the institution views the use of Native American likenesses as respectful or so intimately tied with history to be inseparable from the institution, such as if the name of institution derives from the name of a Native American tribe. Still other schools have embarked on a tumultuous selection of a series of failed attempts to find a replacement for a previous athletic nickname that was a likeness of a Native American. For such schools there may even be a point in the dispute to consider the possibility of return to the previously-discarded Native American likeness as the school's athletic moniker or its mascot.
, Banana slugs, or Demon Deacons)
University
A university is an institution of higher education and research, which grants academic degrees in a variety of subjects. A university is an organisation that provides both undergraduate education and postgraduate education...
or college
College
A college is an educational institution or a constituent part of an educational institution. Usage varies in English-speaking nations...
within the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
is the name officially adopted by that institution for at least the members of its athletic
Sport
A Sport is all forms of physical activity which, through casual or organised participation, aim to use, maintain or improve physical fitness and provide entertainment to participants. Sport may be competitive, where a winner or winners can be identified by objective means, and may require a degree...
team
Team
A team comprises a group of people or animals linked in a common purpose. Teams are especially appropriate for conducting tasks that are high in complexity and have many interdependent subtasks.A group in itself does not necessarily constitute a team...
s. Typically as a matter of engendering school spirit
School spirit
School spirit is emotional support for one's educational institution. This can apply to any type of school, from grade schools to universities...
, the institution either officially or unofficially uses this moniker of the institution's athletic teams also as a nickname
Nickname
A nickname is "a usually familiar or humorous but sometimes pointed or cruel name given to a person or place, as a supposedly appropriate replacement for or addition to the proper name.", or a name similar in origin and pronunciation from the original name....
to refer to people associated with the institution, especially its current student
Student
A student is a learner, or someone who attends an educational institution. In some nations, the English term is reserved for those who attend university, while a schoolchild under the age of eighteen is called a pupil in English...
s, but also often its alumni, its faculty
Faculty (university)
A faculty is a division within a university comprising one subject area, or a number of related subject areas...
, and its administration
Academic administration
An academic administration is a branch of university or college employees responsible for the maintenance and supervision of the institution and separate from the faculty or academics, although some personnel may have joint responsibilities...
as well. This practice at the university and college tertiary higher-education level has proven so popular that it extended to the high school secondary-education level in the USA and in recent years even to the primary-education level as well.
Themes
In the USA, multiple recurring themes have appeared over time for choosing a school's athletic nickname. In almost all cases, the institution chooses an athletic nickname with an overtly positive goal in mind, where that goal reflects the character of the institution—either a previously established characteristic or a characteristic hoped for as a goal henceforth.Abstract concept
Often by choosing an abstract concept as its athletic moniker, the institution wants to inspire its student-athletes on and off the field to achieve success that the abstract concept represents. Examples: Stanford CardinalStanford Cardinal
The Stanford Cardinal is the nickname of the athletic teams at Stanford University.-Nickname and mascot history:Following its win over Cal in the first-ever Big Game in 1892, the color cardinal was picked as the primary color of Stanford's athletic teams...
, UIC Flames
University of Illinois at Chicago
The University of Illinois at Chicago, or UIC, is a state-funded public research university located in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its campus is in the Near West Side community area, near the Chicago Loop...
, Tulane Green Wave
Tulane Green Wave
Green Wave, the nickname of the sports teams of Tulane University, was adopted during the 1920 season, after a song titled The Rolling Green Wave was published in Tulane's student newspaper in 1920. From 1893 to 1919, the athletic teams of Tulane were known as the Olive and Blue for the official...
Animal
Often by choosing an animalAnimal
Animals are a major group of multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the kingdom Animalia or Metazoa. Their body plan eventually becomes fixed as they develop, although some undergo a process of metamorphosis later on in their life. Most animals are motile, meaning they can move spontaneously and...
, the school wants to emphasize the instillation of fear
Fear
Fear is a distressing negative sensation induced by a perceived threat. It is a basic survival mechanism occurring in response to a specific stimulus, such as pain or the threat of danger...
of losing athletic competititons to the institution's teams, such as through an especially fierce or stealthy animal. When the school chooses an animal as its athletic nickname, usually in the plural or as a collective noun for a group of that animal, then typically, the school has that animal (in the singular) as its mascot
Mascot
The term mascot – defined as a term for any person, animal, or object thought to bring luck – colloquially includes anything used to represent a group with a common public identity, such as a school, professional sports team, society, military unit, or brand name...
, either specifically named with a proper noun or generically referred to without a proper noun. Examples: Michigan Wolverines
Michigan Wolverines
The Michigan Wolverines comprise 27 varsity sports teams at the University of Michigan. These teams compete in the NCAA's Division I and in the Big Ten Conference in all sports except men's ice hockey which competes in the NCAA D1 Central Collegiate Hockey Association, and women's water polo, which...
, Oregon Ducks
Oregon Ducks
The Oregon Ducks refers to the sports teams of the University of Oregon, located in Eugene, Oregon. The Oregon Ducks are part of the Pacific-12 Conference in the Division 1 of the NCAA. With seventeen varsity teams, the Oregon Ducks are best known for their football team and Track and Field...
, Princeton Tigers
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
, Wisconsin Badgers
Wisconsin Badgers
The Wisconsin Badgers are the collegiate athletic teams from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. This NCAA Division I athletic program has teams in football, basketball, ice hockey, volleyball, soccer, cross country, tennis, swimming, wrestling, track and field, rowing, golf, and softball...
, California Golden Bears
California Golden Bears
The California Golden Bears is the nickname used for 29 varsity athletic programs and various club teams of the University of California, Berkeley...
.
Collection
Often by choosing a collection that represents a summary of the institution's students or of its history. Such a collection may refer to an ethnicity; a professionProfession
A profession is a vocation founded upon specialized educational training, the purpose of which is to supply disinterested counsel and service to others, for a direct and definite compensation, wholly apart from expectation of other business gain....
; religious designation, such as saints; or other groupings of people. A portion of athletic monikers that fall into this collection category started originally as derogatory epithet
Epithet
An epithet or byname is a descriptive term accompanying or occurring in place of a name and having entered common usage. It has various shades of meaning when applied to seemingly real or fictitious people, divinities, objects, and binomial nomenclature. It is also a descriptive title...
s from others, but as an act of defiance, the school embraced the term as a rallying cry to overcome the term's negative origin. Because a collection is hard to represent or icon
Icon
An icon is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, from Eastern Christianity and in certain Eastern Catholic churches...
ify, when a school chooses a collection as its athletic nickname, the school typically chooses a related but different mascot
Mascot
The term mascot – defined as a term for any person, animal, or object thought to bring luck – colloquially includes anything used to represent a group with a common public identity, such as a school, professional sports team, society, military unit, or brand name...
that symbolizes that collection. Examples: Notre Dame Fighting Irish
Notre Dame Fighting Irish
Notre Dame's nickname is inherited from Irish immigrant soldiers who fought in the Civil War with the Union's Irish Brigade, , recollected among other places in the poetry of Joyce Kilmer who served with one of the Irish Brigade regiments during World War I...
, Oklahoma Sooners
Oklahoma Sooners
The University of Oklahoma features 19 varsity sports teams. Both men's and women's teams are called the Sooners, a nickname given to the early participants in the land rushes which initially opened the Oklahoma Indian Territory to non-native settlement. They participate in the NCAA's Division I-A,...
, Purdue Boilermakers
Purdue Boilermakers
Boilermakers is the official nickname for the intercollegiate athletic teams of Purdue University. As is common with athletic nicknames, it is also used as colloquial designation of Purdue's students and alumni at large....
, Illinois Fighting Illini
Illinois Fighting Illini
The Fighting Illini are the intercollegiate athletic teams of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The University offers 10 men's and 11 women's varsity sports....
Hero or archetype
A small number of schools choose an archetypicalArchetype
An archetype is a universally understood symbol or term or pattern of behavior, a prototype upon which others are copied, patterned, or emulated...
heroic person as their official athletic nickname. This person may be a graduate of the school who is viewed as embodying the school's mission or an archetypal person who is symbolic of the school's area, such as the West Virginia University
West Virginia University
West Virginia University is a public research university in Morgantown, West Virginia, USA. Other campuses include: West Virginia University at Parkersburg in Parkersburg; West Virginia University Institute of Technology in Montgomery; Potomac State College of West Virginia University in Keyser;...
Mountaineer. In religiously-affiliated schools, this person may be a historical person in the religion who has been bestowed an official designation in that religion, such as a saint
Saint
A saint is a holy person. In various religions, saints are people who are believed to have exceptional holiness.In Christian usage, "saint" refers to any believer who is "in Christ", and in whom Christ dwells, whether in heaven or in earth...
in Roman Catholic or Orthodox Christianity.
Native American likeness
Likenesses to Native AmericanNative Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
s were at one time widely-popular athletic monikers, especially for schools that adopted them in the nineteenth century or early twentieth century. In recent years, Native American organizations have protested the unlicensed use of likenesses of native Americans related to team names, team logo
Logo
A logo is a graphic mark or emblem commonly used by commercial enterprises, organizations and even individuals to aid and promote instant public recognition...
s, athletic monikers, cheerleaders, and cheering techniques. The granting of overtly-expressed written licenses by native American organizations to use likenesses of Native Americans in these ways is rare, although not unheard of. In one notable example, two major groups of the Seminole
Seminole
The Seminole are a Native American people originally of Florida, who now reside primarily in that state and Oklahoma. The Seminole nation emerged in a process of ethnogenesis out of groups of Native Americans, most significantly Creeks from what is now Georgia and Alabama, who settled in Florida in...
nation, the Seminole Tribe of Florida and Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, have expressly given Florida State University
Florida State University
The Florida State University is a space-grant and sea-grant public university located in Tallahassee, Florida, United States. It is a comprehensive doctoral research university with medical programs and significant research activity as determined by the Carnegie Foundation...
permission to use the nickname "Seminoles" and certain Seminole imagery. Central Michigan University
Central Michigan University
Central Michigan University is a public research university located in Mount Pleasant in the U.S. state of Michigan...
has a similar arrangement with the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe to use the name "Chippewas".
Because of protests from Native American organizations, some schools have promptly changed their athletic moniker and mascot and cheering practices without significant objection once the issue was raised, especially if such offense toward a group of people was viewed as incompatible with that school's stated mission or if the threat of legal action was too burdensome. Other schools or their student body have defiantly defended their use of Native American likenesses, especially if the institution views the use of Native American likenesses as respectful or so intimately tied with history to be inseparable from the institution, such as if the name of institution derives from the name of a Native American tribe. Still other schools have embarked on a tumultuous selection of a series of failed attempts to find a replacement for a previous athletic nickname that was a likeness of a Native American. For such schools there may even be a point in the dispute to consider the possibility of return to the previously-discarded Native American likeness as the school's athletic moniker or its mascot.
Common and uncommon names
Often, certain nicknames (animals and some abstract concepts, like Giants, Broncos, or Wildcats) become very common. However, some nicknames are unique to that school/team (IlliniIllini
Illini can refer to:* Chief Illiniwek, formerly the mascot of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign* Illiniwek, a group of six Native American tribes in the upper Mississippi River valley of North America...
, Banana slugs, or Demon Deacons)