(Disclaimer: I am only using NCAA Division I schools for this list. If I broadened it to include Division II, Division III and NAIA, it would be too overwhelming. Unfortunately, that deprives us of some...um...interesting mascots, such as the University of California - Santa Cruz Banana Slugs, the Evergreen State College Geoducks, and the University of Arkansas - Monticello Boll Weevils.)
Each category is listed in alphabetical order, with the respective conference in parenthesis.
Here we go...
BEST COLLEGE MASCOTS/NICKNAMES
Arizona State Sun Devils (Pac 12) - I love it because it's unique and a great fit for a college located in the Valley of the Sun. While the other Pac 12 school in Arizona makes the list of worst mascots (see below) by going with a boring, generic and all too common choice, ASU went unique and is much better for it. They've also traditionally had this awesome logo on their football helmets, though it's been replaced by a more modern - but much lamer - pitchfork.
Arkansas Razorbacks (SEC) - This will be the first of several choices that prove that I'm not a total homer. Just because I may have a strong dislike - or, in some cases, hatred - for a school's sports teams, that doesn't mean that I can't admit when they have a good mascot. Arkansas is Mizzou's designated conference rival, so I have to dislike them, though it's not as visceral of a reaction for me as it is when you're talking about Kansas or Texas or some other schools. However, having a team named after a bunch of feral pigs is very cool and seems somewhat appropriate for the state they represent, seeing as how feral swine are most prevalent in southern states like Arkansas and Texas. Arkansas also holds the distinction of being the only Division I program with a porcine mascot, even if it does result in that ridiculous "calling of the hogs" cheer.
Dayton Flyers (Atlantic 10) - As will soon become obvious, I'm a sucker for mascots with meaning - a mascot that represents something historical or representative of the state or area where the school is located. Dayton's mascot is a perfect example of this. The Wright Brothers, the pioneers of flight and the first airplane, were natives of Dayton, so the mascot pays homage to them. It's a unique mascot that is a nod to the history of the area.
Florida Gators (SEC) - One of the first things people think about when they think of Florida - after beaches, palm trees, Disney and senior citizens - are alligators. Alligators are part of the lore of Florida, what with the Everglades and other swamps and fresh water lakes around the state. As such, it makes perfect sense for the state's primary land grant college to have Gators as their mascot. The fact that the nickname of the football stadium is "The Swamp" just adds to the equation.
Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns (Sun Belt) - This is the perfect mascot for a school based in Acadiana, the French-speaking part of Louisiana. Those folks refer to themselves as Cajuns and rhyming "Ragin'" with it and making that their mascot was a stroke of genius. To make it even better, the school changed its mascot to Ragin' Cajuns from the too common "bulldogs." Swapping a boring, commonplace mascot for a unique, geographically appropriate one? Tres bon travail mes amis!
Maryland Terrapins (Big 10) - Maryland selected "terrapins" as their mascot after the diamondback terrapin, which is a species of turtle that is native to the Chesapeake Bay area of Maryland. Another unique mascot that is a nod to the geography of the state the school represents.
Massachusetts Minutemen (Atlantic 10/Mid-American Conference) - When you are a university in the Commonweath of Massachusetts, this is the perfect mascot, though it admittedly works better for men's teams than women's teams, which are known as the "Minutewomen." It's a nod to the Concord Minutemen, the militia who fought the British in the American Revolution. Interestingly, this has only been their mascot since 1972. Prior to that, UMass was one of the many schools with a Native American mascot, the Redmen. Unlike some other schools who switched from Native American mascots to something lame (see below), at least UMass picked a great replacement.
Miami Hurricanes (ACC) - The first non-living thing on our list, Hurricanes is a great choice for a school in a city that has, unfortunately, experienced the wrath of hurricanes over the years.
Minnesota Golden Gophers (Big Ten) - This one might surprise you. At first glance, it seems like a
Montana Grizzlies (Big Sky) - When you think of Montana, you likely think of mountains, open spaces, and big blue skies. If you think about what kinds of animals live in Montana, you very well may think of grizzly bears, since more than half of the estimated 1,500 grizzlies living in the contiguous U.S. can be found in Montana. It's a unique name of an animal that is endemic to the state it represents. I also love their maroon and silver color scheme.
Nebraska Cornhuskers (Big Ten) - Of all of the mascots on this list, this one might be my favorite, even though - as a lifelong Mizzou fan and a Baylor grad - it pains me to say that. However, when you think of a Midwestern plains state like Nebraska, you likely think of fields of corn and wheat. As such, the picture of a person husking corn is a fitting image and thus the perfect mascot for a college in Nebraska. It's unique and appropriate, so it makes the list.
New Mexico Lobos (Mountain West) - This one is an example of taking a somewhat vanilla mascot (a wolf) and spicing it up by choosing the Spanish version of the word as the mascot. While there are other schools with wolf mascots (Nevada and NC State, for example), New Mexico separates itself from the pack (pun intended) by going with "lobos" instead of "wolves" or "wolfpack". New Mexico is a mountainous state with lots of wolves and it's continguous to Mexico, so it all goes well together.
Oklahoma Sooners (Big 12) - This is another unique mascot that points to the state's history, dating back to the Land Rush of 1889 and the settlers who settled land in what is now the state of Oklahoma. To their credit, OU has made the most of it by using the "Sooner schooner" - a covered wagon similar to what was used during the aforementioned land rush - as a symbol of the school.
Old Dominion Monarchs (Conference USA) - This is likely one of the lesser known schools and mascots on this list. ODU is itself named after Virginia's nickname, "Old Dominion." The university is actually an offshoot of the College of William and Mary, which is the second oldest university in the U.S. and was named after, you guessed it, two monarchs - King William III and Queen Mary II. So, when you consider the background and history of the school, Monarchs is an excellent choice for their mascot.
Pepperdine Waves (West Coast) - Pepperdine undoubtedly has one of the most amazing settings of any university in the country. It is located on bluffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean just outside of Malibu, CA. Seeing as how it is literally a stones throw from the waves of the Pacific, having Waves as their mascot absolutely makes sense.
Purdue Boilermakers (Big Ten) - Considering the fact that I'm married to an Indiana Hoosier (more on them later), I probably shouldn't be giving high marks to the mascot of her alma mater's arch rival. But Boilermakers is a perfect mascot for a school that is renowned for its engineering program. In fact, in the earlier days of Purdue, its students actually maintained a fully operational steam locomotive, which helped lead to the unique nickname.
Tennessee Volunteers (SEC) - Tennessee is "The Volunteer State," so named for their overwhelming response for volunteers to fight in the Mexican-American War in the 1840s. President Polk requested 2,600 volunteers nationwide and got more than 10 times that many volunteers from Tennessee alone. With that lineage, it makes perfect sense for the state's main university to christen its sports teams the Volunteers.
Texas Longhorns (Big 12) - Remember when I said earlier that I had some choices that prove I'm not a homer? This is the biggest example of that. I HATE Texas. I hate their fans and their hideous colors and their "I've Been Working on the Railroad" alma mater and their stupid Longhorn Network. Having said that, having "Longhorns" as their mascot makes all the sense in the world. When people think of Texas, they think of cowboys and oil wells and Texas Longhorn cattle, so calling their teams "longhorns" was an obvious but very good choice.
West Virginia Mountaineers (Big 12) - West Virginia is located in the art of Appalachia, so it is a mountainous and largely rural state. With that in mind, using "Mountaineers" as their mascot is a great choice. The fact that, each year, a different student is selected to dress up as the mountaineer to serve as the school's official mascot is pretty cool, too. While the "mountaineers" moniker is not entirely unique (Appalachian State uses it as well), West Virginia was using it before ASU was even established as a college.
Wichita State Shockers (American) - Like Nebraska, Kansas is commonly associated with farms and field of corn and wheat. Early on in Wichita State's history, many students earned money by shocking (or harvesting) wheat. In addition, some of their early football games were played on a stubbed wheat field. As a result, an early, unofficial nickname for their athletic teams were the "Wheatshockers." The name caught on, though newspaper sports reporters shortened it to "Shockers" and the university soon then formally adopted it as their mascot. It's a unique, appropriate nickname, so it rounds out our list of the best mascots.
So, there you have my list of the BEST college mascots. Now, let's move on and go through my list of the WORST...
WORST COLLEGE MASCOTS/NICKNAMES
Wildcats (multiple schools, including Arizona, Kansas State, Kentucky, Northwestern and Villanova) - This has to be the laziest, most generic mascot in all of sports. It's not specific (like "Pumas" or "Lynx" or "Bobcats" would be) and anytime a team in the desert, a team in the plains and teams in Chicago and Philadelphia have the same mascot, you know it's a bad mascot. While there are some "wild cats" that are native to the U.S., none of them are actually called or known as "wildcats." The species of "wild cats" that ARE known as "wildcats" are native to Europe, Asia and Africa. All of that combined makes this my choice for the worst mascot.
Bulldogs (multiple schools, including Butler, Fresno State, Georgia, Gonzaga, Louisiana Tech, Mississippi State and Yale) - While less generic, this mascot is so common as to be boring. In fact, the bulldog is the most common mascot among Division I schools with a total of 15 school using it. When your mascot isn't even unique within your own conference, you have a bad mascot.
Tigers (multiple schools, including Auburn, Clemson, LSU, Memphis, Missouri and Princeton) - Another too common mascot. While there is some justification for some schools to have chosen it (the Missouri Tigers name pays tribute to a Civil War era militia that protected Columbia from attacks and was known as "The Missouri Tigers", for example), there are just too many schools that have chosen it. Even more befuddling are the schools who have selected "tigers" as their mascot but school colors that have nothing to do with tigers. Missouri uses black and gold, which makes sense. Princeton uses black and orange, which also makes sense. But LSU's PURPLE and gold? Clemson's orange and PURPLE? No, no, no.
To illustrate how common these mascots are, let's consider the SEC. That conference has two teams named "bulldogs" (Georgia and Mississippi State) and three teams named "tigers" (Auburn, LSU and Missouri), as well as the obligatory "wildcats" (Kentucky). So, out of the 14 teams in the conference, more than 1/3 have either "bulldogs" or "tigers" as their mascot.
Former Native American name, now red something (Arkansas State, Miami, St. John's, Southeast Missouri) - For years, "Indians" or some derivative of that (redmen, warriors, etc.) was a common mascot for teams. Besides being ethnically and racially insensitive, it was incredibly generic. To their credit, many schools have dropped those Native American mascots. Unfortunately, most them have selected lame mascots with the word "red" in their name. Arkansas State went from "Indians" to "Red Wolves". Miami went from "Redskins" to "RedHawks". St. John's went from "Redmen" to "Red Storm". Southeast Missouri went from "Indians" to "Redhawks". I get it - red is one of your school colors, but that doesn't mean it has to be part of the team's name. As mentioned earlier, when UMass ditched their Native American mascot, they switched to something terrific. These other schools picked "Red Something," which is just lazy and lame.
Eagles or some variant of it (multiple schools, including Boston College, Eastern Michigan, Marquette, Southern Mississippi) - Like "bulldogs", there 15 Division I school who have "eagles" as their mascot. Many of them have tried to distinguish themselves by throwing a color in front of "Eagles" - Golden is a popular choice (see Marquette, Southern Miss, Oral Roberts and Tennessee Tech) - but it's still an eagle.
Notre Dame Fighting Irish (ACC) - It's interesting. Everyone is offended by teams portraying Native Americans as bloodthirsty savages, but nobody has a problem with a school perpetuating the stereotype of the Irish as drunken brawlers? It would be akin to a school using "Italian Mobsters" and "Jewish Misers" as their mascot. Notre Dame is one of the finest academic institutions in this country; it's a shame their mascot, while unique, is a blatant, tired stereotype.
Auburn (SEC) - At this point, I think it's reasonable to call out Auburn as being doubly bad. While their official mascot is the "tigers," they also do the whole "war eagle" thing, so they have both tigers AND eagles, both among the most common mascots around.
Now that we've gone through our best and worst mascots, now it's time for the WEIRDEST mascots...
WEIRDEST COLLEGE MASCOTS/NICKNAMES
Idaho Vandals (Big Sky) - Many of these weird names can be attributed to old time sportswriters. This one is an example of that. The Vandals name dates back to a 1917 article in the school newspaper in which he referred to the team as "Vandals" because they competed so ferociously that they "vandalized" their opponents. The name stuck and became the official mascot in 1921. Typically, "vandals" has a negative connotation, but Idaho has embraced it as their mascot. It's an odd, but certainly unique, choice.
Indiana Hoosiers (Big Ten) - To be honest, this one makes sense. "Hoosiers" is a demonym of people from Indiana, so it makes sense that the state's flagship university would choose Hoosiers as their mascot. Here's the thing, though - no one knows what the hell a hoosier is. There are numerous different stories as to where the term originated but there is no universally accepted explanation. In a way, it's a made up word that has somehow come to define a university and a state. When my wife and I were first dating, I asked her what IU's mascot was. Her reply? "Bob Knight, I guess."
Marshall Thundering Herd (Conference USA) - The Thundering Herd moniker comes from a 1920s novel and silent film, which inspired a local sportswriter to use the term to refer to Marshall's sports teams. However, it wasn't officially chosen as the school's official mascot until 1965. Most interesting are some of the other names that were unofficially used to describe Marshall's teams - names such as "Boogercats" and "Green Gobblers."
North Carolina Tar Heels (ACC) - This one is similar to Indiana. It's a term broadly applied to the residents of the state, as well as the state's flagship university, but no one knows exactly where the name came from. It likely stems from the fact that things like tar and turpentine were early exports
from North Carolina's pine forests and it was a term that grew in popularity during the Civil War. It was originally a pejorative but North Carolinians then turned it into a source of pride. While UNC has periodically used this cool tar heel logo, they also often use a ram mascot for some reason.
North Texas Mean Green (Conference USA) - This is another weird one with dubious origins. Prior to the late 1960s, North Texas's mascot was the eagles. But sometime during the late '60s, it morphed into Mean Green. This was around the same time that football legend "Mean" Joe Greene played for them and it's not necessarily clear which came first - the player's nickname or the team's. Either way, it's an odd one.
Saint Louis Billikens (Atlantic 10) - SLU's sports teams are named after a good luck charm doll that was a popular fad back in the early 1900s. So, it's the early 20th century equivalent of naming a team after a pet rock or fidget spinner.
South Carolina Chicken Things (SEC and Sun Belt) - South Carolina's mascot has been the Gamecocks since 1900. A gamecock is a rooster bred for cockfighting, though my favorite definition of "gamecock" is one I saw on a bumper sticker on vacation in South Carolina years ago:
Either way, it's a weird mascot. When Coastal Carolina University became affiliated with the University of South Carolina in the 1960s, there was a push to replace CCU's existing mascot (Trojans) with something more in line with the Gamecocks from USC. The result? Coastal Carolina chose the difficult to pronounce "Chanticleers" as their new mascot, with the Chanticleer coming from a rooster made famous in The Canterbury Tales. So, one state with two rooster/chicken mascots. Bizarre, but better than naming the teams after palmetto roaches, though.
Stanford Cardinal (Pac 12) - Yes, it's "Cardinal" singular rather than "cardinals" plural. And while Stanford has no official mascot, a member of the Stanford marching band dresses up in a homemade tree costume and appears at some sporting events, thus surviving as a de facto mascot.
TCU Horned Frogs (Big 12) - I debated putting this one in the "best" category since the mascot is a tribute to the Texas horned lizard, which is the state reptile of Texas. However, it makes the weird list because the "horned frog" is generally a docile creature that is smaller than 5 inches in length. So naming your sports teams after a hand-sized reptile? Yeah, I'd call that weird.
Tulane Green Wave (American) - The teams are named after a football song, "The Rolling Green Wave" that was published in the Tulane student newspaper in 1920. Though, whenever I hear "green wave", it makes me think of an algae bloom in a body of water. Unique? Yes. Weird? Absolutely. At least Tulane is located somewhat close to a body of water, unlike...
Tulsa Golden Hurricane (American) - Tulsa is in northeastern Oklahoma, hundreds of miles away from any ocean or the Gulf of Mexico. As such, short of some crazy flooding and rapid fire rising of the oceans, it isn't meteorologically possible for a hurricane to hit it. Originally, the team was called the "Golden Tornadoes" for a few years in the 1920s. Seeing as how Oklahoma is in the heart of tornado alley, it made sense. However, the school dropped that mascot after discovering that Georgia Tech was using it. They then substituted "hurricane" for "tornadoes" (not sure why they went from plural to singular, but whatever) and that has been their mascot ever since. So, whereas "Hurricanes" is a great mascot for a school in Miami, Florida, "Golden Hurricane" is just a weird choice for a school in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Virginia Tech Hokies (ACC) - This is another mascot based upon a made-up, nonsense word. The term evolved from a spirit cheer developed in 1896, the majority of which is a bunch of gibberish. For some reason, the "Hokie" part stuck and the teams were named after that. Because no one knows what the hell a hokie is, the team's actual mascot at sporting events is an anthropomorphic turkey-like creature, a nod to the informal nickname of the "Fighting Gobblers" that Tech fans have used for their teams since the 1920s. Whether you call them the "Hokies" or the "Gobblers," it's a weird mascot either way.
Wake Forest Demon Deacons (ACC) - Originally, Wake Forest's sports teams were known as the "Fighting Baptists," which might be the coolest and most accurate name in the history of sports.
There you have it - my (fairly comprehensive) list of the best, worst and weirdest college mascots. Kudos to the ACC and Big 10 for having a lot of unique mascots! Do you disagree with any of my choices? Are there any really good, really bad or really weird mascots that I missed? If so, leave a comment and let me know.
Thanks for reading!
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