Weird University & College Mascots

A List of the Strangest School Mascots From Across the United States

Jun 29, 2007 Naomi Rockler-Gladen

A banana slug? A fighting artichoke? Here are some of the strangest college mascots.

When most schools think of a name for a mascot, they usually choose something majestic or fierce, like a bear or a wolf. After all, the mascot represents a college sports team, right? A few schools, however, have truly unusual mascot names that break the norm. Here are a few of the more unusual college mascots.

Sammy The Banana Slug: University of California-Santa Cruz. A banana slug is a slimy yellow mollusk found near the northern California coastal community of Santa Cruz. This free-spirited campus adopted the less-than-majestic slug as a mascot as a commentary on the overemphasis of athletics at many universities. In the 1980s, a chancellor tried to change the mascot to a the more reputable sea lion. But the students fought to keep the slug, so Sammy lives on.

Super Frog the Horned Frog: Texas Christian University. TCU has been using the horned toad as a mascot since 1897. The horned toad might sound like a strange choice of a mascot, but it's the state reptile of Texas, and Native Americans in the Southwest believed this five inch long frog had ancient powers. The mascot's name used to be Addy the All-American Frog, but became Super Frog in 1979.

Artie the Fighting Artichoke: Scottsdale Community College. Why in the world would you make your mascot a vegetable? Well, it's like this: during the 1970s, students at SCC were furious because they felt too much money was being spent to make the school a junior college sports powerhouse. Thus, when student government was asked to hold an election to name the mascot, they ran three choices: the artichoke, the rutabaga, and the scoundrel. Artie won. The college called the election null and void, but the artichoke stuck around long after the political fight ended.

Delta State University: The Fighting Okra. Ah, another vegetable mascot, and one that's appropriate for a Mississippi school! There's no political impetus behind this name. People just got bored with the previous name, the Statesmen, and since the team uniforms are mostly green, they found the name of something both green and Southern.

The Fighting Pickle: North Carolina School of the Arts. The origin of the pickle is a bit unclear. The NCSA student handbook offers two possible explanations. First, the pickle may be a tribute to a pickle company that used to donate money to the school. Second, it may be a form of protest to the school's 1972 search for a "militaristic" school mascot name. That didn't go over so well in the Vietnam era, so the end result was a protest pickle.

The Boll Weevil: University of Arkansas at Monticello. Lest you think the boll weevil is just a small gray bug, you should know that it poses a huge danger to cotton crops. In 1920s Arkansas, that made this bug one scary opponent, and hence a good name for a team.

See also: Weird college rankings

The copyright of the article Weird University & College Mascots in Campus Life is owned by Naomi Rockler-Gladen. Permission to republish Weird University & College Mascots in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Super Frog the Horned Frog