Your favorite sports squad or alma mater ’s mascot is in all probability some sort of full-grown computed axial tomography or bird of prey , and that ’s okay . Your tattoo is right ; the Tigers totally rule . However , there are quite a few more esoteric mascot choices out there , like a color of a certain inclination or a solidification of punctuation mark marks , all of which can still cause fans to well up with pride . Here are the origins of some of our favorites from this arcane set :
1. University of North Carolina Tar Heels' Rameses the Ram
A nimble trip to Chapel Hill will break lot of great bar and live music venues but surprisingly few wild rams walking Franklin Street . So why is the school ’s mascot a ram ? In 1924 cheerleader Vic Huggins decided the school call for a symbolisation . The stellar football team of 1922 had been led by the punishing running playing period of Jack " The Battering Ram" Merritt , so Huggins adjudicate that a bouncy ram would be the perfect mascot . Huggins had Rameses ship in from Texas for $ 25 , and when the Tar Heels beat heavily favor VMI in Rameses ' first appearance , the ram became something of an founding . Perhaps the least believable part of this integral storey is that it involves Carolina winning a major football game , but phonograph record show it ’s entirely true .
2. Philadelphia Phillies' Phillie Phanatic
In the previous 1970s the Phillies ' mascot were two 18th - 100 siblings named Philadelphia Phil and Philadelphia Phyllis , but the duad did little to attract families wary of Veterans ' Stadium rough - and - tumble double . In an effort to find a more kinfolk - friendly mascot , team officials commissioned design business firm Harrison / Erickson , who also designed Muppets and the Montreal Expos ' beloved Youppi ! , to craft a gentler symbol for the squad . Thus , in 1978 six feet of gullible pelt , draw in tongue , and gyrating belly were born to stand for the fanatic passion of Philly ’s fan without delineate attention to the more beer - soaked face of the Vet .
The Phanatic has since become one of baseball game ’s most pop mascots , but since this is a Philly sports chronicle it ca n’t have a totally happy ending . Former squad vice president and current part owner Bill Giles wrote in his autobiography that he made a key blunder when commission the intent . give the pick of buy the Phanatic costume alone for $ 3900 or the costume and its copyright for $ 5200 , Giles did n’t shell out the special $ 1300 . This determination turned out to be an expensive mistake : five years after Giles and a grouping of investors buy the team and eventually buy the copyright from Harrison / Erickson for $ 250,000 . [ Image courtesy ofsilverscreentest.com . ]
3. Oakland A’s Stomper the Elephant
Benjamin Shibe , who is credited with inventing the machinery to mass - produce standardized baseballs , have the then - Philadelphia Athletics from their inception in 1901 . In the early days of the dealership , New York Giants manager John " Muggsy" McGraw derisively said that Shibe had a white elephant on his hands since the Athletics could n’t compete with the live Phillies of the National League .
alternatively of shy away from the twit , fabled Athletics manager Connie Mack embrace the snowy elephant nickname , even go so far as to give his onetime friend McGraw a block elephant when the Athletics meet McGraw ’s Giants in the 1905 World Series . Although outlandish possessor Charlie Finley replace the elephant with a bouncy Missouri scuff named after himself in 1963 , the elephant mascot was restored in 1988 , and Stomper debut in 1997 . With his in high spirits OBP and the great justificative image factor he gets from his trunk , Stomper is surely a pet of current A ’s general managing director Billy Beane . [ effigy courtesy ofPhiladelphiaAthletics.org . ]
4. University of North Texas Mean Green
It takes a special thespian to get his routine retired by his alma mater , but only a real legend ’s nickname becomes his school ’s mascot . The brutal play of football star " Mean" Joe Greene , perhaps best make love to many casual fans for winning Super Bowls and frig around a Coke off a tyke in a commercial , may have given hike to the school ’s current moniker after days of playing with a less - than - inspired green Eagles mascot . consort to one story blow by the university , Sidney Sue Graham , the wife of sports selective information director Fred Graham , called Greene " mean" following a brutal tackle during his late-1960 ’s career at the schooling . She then begin promise the entire smothering defensive unit the " base Green,“ and although Graham ab initio dismiss his wife ’s newly coin phrase , he finally used it in a military press dismission that caught on with reporters . [ Image courtesy ofUNT.edu . ]
5. New College of Florida [ ]
That ’s not a typo . The New College of Florida ’s unofficial student mascot is actually the zip set . After hearing rumors of this unique mascot but not being able-bodied to observe any hard evidence on it , I placed a call to the school ’s Office of Public Affairs , where the very well-disposed staffer inform me that while the 746 - undergrad college found in 1960 does n’t officially have a mascot , it ’s sightly to say that scholar dramatise the null rig early on in the school ’s history as a crafty wink to its want of athletic teams . Although the school now fields competitory teams in sailing , ultimate Frisbee , and soccer , the [ ] still seems almost as clever ; one ca n’t afford to be all that picky when search for a mascot based on jell theory .
6. Georgia Tech’s Ramblin' Wreck
College sports fans recognize that Georgia Tech ’s mascot is the Yellow Jacket , a custom that dates back to at least 1905 . However , anyone who ’s been to a home football game at Bobby Dodd Stadium at Historic Grant Field in Atlanta has also seen the prescribed mascot of the student body , a 1930 Ford Model A Sports Coupe known as the Ramblin ' Wreck . The phrase " ramblin ' wreck" go steady back to at least the 1890 ’s as part of the school ’s combat song and may have stemmed from a description of the entire student body traveling from Athens to Atlanta to watch a football biz against the University of Georgia .
accord to the school paperThe Technique , the program program of the condition " ramblin ' wreck" to cars first occurred in the former 20th century to describe makeshift vehicle built by Georgia Tech railroad engineer during projects in the South American jungle . By 1927 the 1914 Ford of Dean of Men Floyd Field had taken on iconic status as a Ramblin ' Wreck .
The current Wreck was purchased in 1961 by Dean of Students Jim Dull , who launch the Wreck park near his apartment construction . This newfangled Ramblin ' Wreck lead the Yellowjackets onto the subject for their habitation secret plan against Rice on September 30 , 1961 and has done so for every home secret plan since . [ persona courtesy ofGaTech.edu . ]
7. Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons' Guy Made of Pistons
Technically , this one is the logo , not the mascot , of the Detroit Pistons precursor that play in Fort Wayne , Indiana from 1941 to 1957 , and I ca n’t find an official name for him . But really , your life is good for having gaze upon him . The squad was originally possess by industrialist Fred Zollner , who also owned a large foundry that made automotive pistons , hence the team name . To that extent , the Pistons sobriquet and the logo make sense . Upon closer examination , though , the logo raises a host of questions : what sort of horrendous foundry accident create this piston monster ? Why did it spare only his hands and feet ? Could he beat the Tin Man in a game of one - on - one ? Why is he happily dribbling that lump rather than using science to rectify his missing body ? We ’ll never get it on ; since 1996 the Pistons ' mascot has been Hooper , a opprobrious knight . Because , you be intimate , pistons create horsepower . Even a guy whose entire head is a plunger could probably come up up with wordplay that ’s a footling less constrained . [ mental image courtesy ofWikipedia . ]
8. The University of Akron Zips' Zippy the Kangaroo
If you saw Zippy win the 2007 Capital One National Mascot of the Year honor , you probably wondered why Akron had the gloriously befuddling combination of the Zips sobriquet and a kangaroo mascot . Surely there was some internal system of logic there , right ? Not at all , which makes Zippy all the more intriguing .
After a campus - broad contest to name the school ’s athletic teams in 1925 , entrant Margaret Hamlin won ten dollar for her suggestion of " Zippers" after a pop rubber overshoe of the same name made by local company B.F. Goodrich . The nickname remained the Zippers until 1950 , when it was shortened to the Zips .
As for Zippy the kangaroo , she became the mascot in 1953 after student council advisor Dick Hansford recommend the idea . According to school ’s website , Hansford nominate the idea because he enjoy a contemporary risible strip feature Kicky the Fighting Kangaroo . This combination of combine the name of a popular rubber shoe and a popular toon character deserves more picture ; we can only go for that somewhere out there a fledgling college is naming its teams the Crocs , complete with trip the light fantastic Marmaduke mascot . [ Image courtesy ofChippewaGolfClub.com . ]
Digg This !
