"All of the media and coverage and write-ups that I've seen basically say that Owen Bird covered a track meet in early 1912," said Claude Zachary, a university archivist and manuscripts librarian at the University of Southern California Libraries, "which USC lost but he was struck by their fighting spirit so he said they fought like 'Trojans.'" However, it's somewhat unclear as to whether Bird created "Trojans" on his own, or if he thought of a nickname at Bovard's request. The University of Arizona became the "Wildcats" after a Los Angeles Times writer wrote in 1914 that " The Arizona men showed the fight of wild cats." It wasn't unusual for school nicknames or mascots to come from newspapers. Southern California's website credits Bird, the sports editor, as being the one who created the nickname "Trojans." George Bovard was the school president, asked Los Angeles Times sports editor Owen Bird to help Southern California choose a nickname.
Owen Bird, who is credited by Southern California as the one who came up with the nickname said, "The term 'Trojan' as applied to USC means to me that no matter what the situation, what the odds or what the conditions, the competition must be carried on to the end and those who strive must give all they have and never be weary in doing so." Where did the nickname 'Trojans' come from?Īccording to the school's website, Southern California Athletic Director Warren Bovard, whose father Dr. The Trojan War reportedly took place during the Bronze Age - hundreds, if not thousands, of years B.C. "Trojans" originally referred to people from the city of Troy, which in Greek mythology, fought the Greeks in the Trojan war. Here's the true story of how Southern California adopted the nickname "Trojans." What is a Trojan? The stories behind the mascots at Alabama, Arizona, Southern Illinois, Virginia Tech and Wake Forest are all compelling, too. All because of an unheated locker room and the lack of warmups caused Youngstown State's basketball team to wave their arms like penguins. While Yale's living, breathing bulldog mascot Handsome Dan wasn't the first real-life bulldog the school had, Handsome Dan I started a lineage that now stretches to Handsome Dan XVIII.Īs unlikely as it sounds, Youngstown State is nicknamed the Penguins because of a remark an opposing basketball coach reportedly made five years before there was a student poll to decide the school's mascot. has previously taken college sports fans down the rabbit hole behind how some of the country's most beloved college mascots came to be.