While I tried to think of something historical about Ohio University, I was thinking about the unfortunate loss to Miami we had last Saturday. That eventually got me thinking about how our mascot came to be the Bobcats. “In 1925, the members of the OHIO Athletic Board contemplated an official nickname for Ohio University to replace “Ohio,” the “Green and White” and “The Nameless Wonders” (OHIO Bobcats and the Mascots | Ohio University Alumni Association). They held a contest with a prize of 10 dollars, which would be about 120 dollars today. Hal H. Rowland, a former student and Athens resident won with “Bobcat” as his idea. It was adopted on December 7th, 1925. The Bobcat mascot first appeared at Ohio’ Homecoming game in 1960 against the Miami Redhawks. The team won 21-0, went on to have a 10-0 season, and was voted NCAA National College Division Champions. Tom Schantz was in charge of designing the mascot’s costume, which took a lot of twist and turns over the years. This then brought up the question of who would wear the Bobcat costume. A member of the class of 1963 named Dan Nichols was the first to don the costume. This began “the tradition that the person donning the costume must live in Lincoln Hall, a tradition that lasted for several decades” (OHIO Bobcats and the Mascots | Ohio University Alumni Association). The current name of our Bobcat “Rufus” came in 2006. The name came from the scientific name of a bobcat (Lynx rufus) and Rufus Putnam, on of the Ohio University founders.
I found this bit of information really interesting to who we are as Ohio University students. We always see Rufus at basketball and football games bringing on the school spirit for our teams. The mascot plays a big role in the identification of a team in my opinion. The Bobcat has come a long way to being Rufus the Bobcat we all love and know today. Researching this makes me wonder how other colleges chose the mascots they did because some of them are ridiculous.
Work Cited
Work Cited
"OHIO Bobcats and the Mascots | Ohio University Alumni Association." Ohio University Alumni Association. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Oct. 2012. <http://www.ohioalumni.org/bobcats-mascots>.
What a cool piece of OU to research! I had no idea how we became the Bobcats and that was really neat to learn how our Rufus was named. I would have never thought to research his background but I'm glad you did because this was pretty interesting. Also it was great how you included the pictures at the top - I miss our lady bobcat! One thing that would have added to the detail of those, however, would have been years underneath each picture of when that Rufus was "in action". Overall, great blog though! Very interesting topic.
ReplyDeleteI think this was an excellent topic to research. With everyone doing research on buildings and other history around campus, this was a fresh piece of information that really intrigued me to learn more. You provided great information as to the creation of a new mascot as well as a new name for the mascot which was very interesting information to learn. This blog was a great idea as it was fun to read and provided information into the history of our beloved sports teams, The Ohio Bobcats. Telling us about how the mascot plays a huge role in our school spirit was dead on and I believe this information should be published in the post for all students to read and learn about. Thank you for the historical background that you provided me with over our dear ol' Rufus.
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