The Story of Rhett: Boston University's Terrier Mascot
Boston University (BU) is represented in NCAA Division I competition by its ten men's and fourteen women's varsity athletic teams, known as the Terriers. The Boston University Terriers have a beloved mascot: Rhett the Boston Terrier. The story of Rhett is intertwined with the university's history, traditions, and even a bit of controversy.
From Bull Moose to Boston Terrier: The Mascot's Origins
Back in November 1922, the BU campus was embroiled in a debate about whether the University’s mascot should be a bull moose or a Boston terrier. In October 1925, the Boston University football team adopted a terrier pup named Pep to serve as its mascot, though it was referred to as "Kappa" by BU News, the university's newspaper, in an October 1927 issue. In 1933, Boston University students purchased another terrier named Danny to become the new mascot. Following Danny's death from drowning in the Charles River, another terrier named Danny II was purchased in November 1935. After Danny II ran away, a terrier pup was donated to Boston University Dean Atlee L. Percy in October 1949 and named Gulliver in a student vote. In the early decades, real Boston terriers would appear at athletic events.
The "Gone With the Wind" Connection
Sometime after Margaret Mitchell’s best-selling novel, Gone with the Wind, was published in 1936, the mascot was named after its male protagonist-Rhett Butler. Why? He was named for Gone with the Wind’s Rhett Butler because Rhett loved Scarlett. In 1969, the current mascot dog, Terrier III, died without a replacement being purchased until 1980. When Boston University unveiled a costumed mascot at a home football game in November 1983, it was named Rhett, referencing Rhett Butler's affection for Scarlett O'Hara in Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind since Boston University's primary color is scarlet.
Rhett Through the Years: Evolution of a Mascot
In the 1950s, students began donning a Rhett costume not only at athletic games, but also at youth clinics, national cheerleading competitions, and various BU promotional and holiday events. Rhett has been known to stop by the George Sherman Union, dining halls, and other campus venues to help mark special occasions. Rhett has undergone a few makeovers through the decades, most recently in 2006, when he had his ears shortened and his fur went from largely gray to predominantly black.
Rhett's Modern Life and Campus Presence
Rhett the Boston Terrier is the official costumed mascot of Boston University and the Boston University Academy. In 2008, alumnus Calvin Iwanicki named his Boston Terrier pet dog Rhett, often showcasing him across campus buildings as the university's unofficial mascot. That terrier’s name is Rhett - named after BU’s official school mascot, also a Boston terrier - and belongs to Allston resident Calvin Iwanicki. Iwanicki said Rhett is an Arkansan Boston terrier who was born on Jan. 26, 2008. Although Rhett now lives with Iwanicki and his ex-wife, Iwanicki said the terrier still has four other siblings back in Arkansas. Iwanicki said when Rhett first arrived in Boston, he seemed confused. “He looks out of the box and he looks at us like, who are you freaks? Where are my brothers and sisters and where the hell am I?” Iwanicki said. Rhett’s fame started when a BU photographer took a picture of Rhett for a BU “Scarlet Fever” spirit day advertisement, Iwanicki said. Since Rhett has been walking around BU since September 2008, Iwanicki said the Boston terrier has started recognizing different spots on campus. “The characteristics of the breed are characteristics we want in our athletic teams and in our student body,” Riley said. Real-life Boston terrier Rhett poses in front of Marsh Chapel. Without the music, Iwanicki said, the arena is so quiet, “It’s like a mausoleum. As Rhett continues to spend more time around West Campus, Iwanicki said he has been exposed to a number of sports teams and clubs practicing on the fields. “Boston terriers snore really loud and they can clear the room out with a fart,” Iwanicki said. “Sometimes [he does it] at the same time. With a campus surrounded by food, Iwanicki said he has introduced Rhett to some restaurants around BU. Ever since he discovered Rhett’s favorite food is chicken, Iwanicki makes it a point to frequent Raising Cane’s - a popular West Campus eatery specializing in chicken fingers - where he peels the breading off a piece of chicken and feeds it to Rhett. On occasion, Rhett also enjoys drinking some alcoholic beverages. In particular, Vermont beer Magic Hat #9. “He has elevated taste,” Iwanicki said. Rhett and Iwanicki come to campus whenever they please. Iwanicki said he uses the weather and Rhett’s energy level to determine when is best to come to and leave campus. “I can tell, he’s getting tired so [we] go home,” said Iwanicki. “One of the things that can make students homesick is leaving their pets behind,” Riley said. Aside from hanging out on Commonwealth Avenue, Iwanicki said Rhett has made many guest appearances at campus events, such as the club fair Splash and commencement. “It’s great when his owner brings him on campus to events and games,” Connolly wrote.
Read also: Evolution of the Oregon Mascot
Rhett's nemesis is Baldwin, the Boston College eagle. Rhett has participated in several ESPN "This is SportsCenter" commercials and competed three times in the Universal Cheerleading Association's mascot nationals, placing as high as fourth in 2002.
Controversy and Potential Renaming
During the 2020 George Floyd protests, Boston University President Robert A. Brown raised concerns about the mascot's name due to its association with "Gone With the Wind." “Gone With the Wind” was removed from HBO’s new streaming service, HBO Max, in June after “12 Years a Slave” writer-director John Ridley raised concerns about the movie’s glorification of “the antebellum South.” It returned to the platform late last month. “Despite this seemingly cute connection between the movie and our mascot’s name, the fact is that the movie’s portrayal of the American Civil War, postwar reconstruction, and slavery is offensive,” Brown wrote. “And it is reasonable for people to question why, at a university founded by abolitionists, we have a mascot nicknamed for a character in a film whose racist depictions are completely at odds with our own tradition. Boston University’s mascot may be renamed due to its association with the book and film “Gone With the Wind,” BU president Robert A. The Boston terrier mascot was chosen in a student vote in 1922, and the “Rhett” nickname was adopted sometime later.
Boston University: A Brief Overview
Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. BU was founded in 1839 by a group of Boston Methodists with its original campus in Newbury, Vermont. It was chartered in Boston in 1869. The university has nearly 38,000 students and more than 4,000 faculty members and is one of Boston's largest employers. It offers bachelor's degrees, master's degrees, doctorates, and medical, dental, business, and law degrees through 17 schools and colleges on three urban campuses. BU athletic teams compete in the Patriot League and Hockey East conferences, and their mascot is Rhett the Boston Terrier. The university is nonsectarian, though it retains its historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. The main campus is situated along the Charles River in Boston's Fenway-Kenmore and Allston neighborhoods, while the Boston University Medical Campus is located in Boston's South End neighborhood.
Boston University traces its roots to the establishment of the "Newbury Biblical Institute" in Newbury, Vermont, in 1839, and was chartered with the name "Boston University" by the Massachusetts Legislature when it moved there in 1869. On April 24-25, 1839, a group of Methodist ministers and laymen at the Old Bromfield Street Church in Boston elected to establish a Methodist theological school. In 1847, the Congregational Society in Concord, New Hampshire, invited the institute to relocate to Concord and offered a disused Congregational church building with a capacity of 1200 people. Other citizens of Concord covered the remodeling costs. One stipulation of the invitation was that the Institute remain in Concord for at least 20 years. With the agreed twenty years coming to a close, the trustees of the Concord Biblical Institute purchased 30 acres (120,000 m2) on Aspinwall Hill in Brookline, Massachusetts, as a possible relocation site. In 1869, three trustees of the "Boston Theological Institute" obtained from the Massachusetts Legislature a charter for a university by the name of "Boston University". These trustees were successful Boston businessmen and Methodist laymen, with a history of involvement in educational enterprises, and they became the founders of Boston University. They were Isaac Rich (1801-1872), Lee Claflin (1791-1871), and Jacob Sleeper (1802-1889), for whom Boston University's three West Campus dormitories were later named. No instructor in said University shall ever be required by the Trustees to profess any particular religious opinions as a test of office, and no student shall be refused admission … On January 13, 1872, Isaac Rich died, leaving the vast bulk of his estate to a trust that would go to Boston University after ten years of growth while the university was organized. Most of this bequest consisted of real estate throughout the core of the city of Boston, which was appraised at more than $1.5 million. Kilgore describes this as the largest single donation to an American college or university as of that time. By December, however, the Great Boston Fire of 1872 had destroyed all but one of the buildings Rich had left to the university, and the insurance companies with which they had been insured were bankrupt. As a result, the university was unable to build its contemplated campus on Aspinwall Hill, and the land was sold piecemeal as development sites. Street names in the area, including Claflin Road, Claflin Path, and University Road, are the only remaining evidence of university ownership in this area. After receiving a year's salary advance to allow him to pursue his research in 1875, Alexander Graham Bell, then a professor at the school, invented the telephone in a Boston University laboratory. In 1876, Borden Parker Bowne was appointed professor of philosophy. Bowne, an important figure in the history of American religious thought, was an American Christian philosopher and theologian in the Methodist tradition. The university continued its tradition of openness in this period. In 1877, Boston University became the first American university to award a PhD to a woman, when classics scholar Helen Magill White earned hers with a thesis on "The Greek Drama". Then in 1878 Anna Oliver became the first woman to receive a degree in theology in the United States, but the Methodist Church would not ordain her. Lelia J. 688 Boylston Street in Boston, the early home of the College of Liberal Arts, the precursor to Boston University College of Arts and Sciences, c. Seeking to unify a geographically scattered school and enable it to participate in the development of the city, school president Lemuel Murlin arranged that the school buy the present campus along the Charles River. Between 1920 and 1928, the school bought the 15 acres (61,000 m2) of land that had been reclaimed from the river by the Riverfront Improvement Association. Murlin was never able to build the new campus, but his successor, Daniel L. In 1951, Harold C. Case became the school's fifth president and under his direction the character of the campus changed significantly, as he sought to change the school into a national research university. The campus tripled in size to 45 acres (180,000 m2), and added 68 new buildings before Case retired in 1967. The first large dorms, Claflin, Rich and Sleeper Halls in West Campus were built, and in 1965 construction began on 700 Commonwealth Avenue, later named Warren Towers, designed to house 1800 students. Between 1961 and 1966, the BU Law Tower, the George Sherman Union, and the Mugar Memorial Library were constructed in the Brutalist style, a departure from the school's traditional architecture. When a mini-squabble over editorial policy at college radio WBUR-FM - whose offices were under a tall radio antenna mast in front of the School of Public Relations and Communications (later College of Communications) - started growing in the spring of 1964, Case persuaded university trustees that the university should take over the widely-heard radio station (now a major outlet for National Public Radio and still a BU-owned broadcast facility). The trustees approved the firing of student managers and clamped down on programming and editorial policy, which had been led by Jim Thistle, later a major force in Boston's broadcast news milieu. The on-campus political dispute between Case's conservative administration and the suddenly active and mostly liberal student body led to other disputes over BU student print publications, such as the B.U. The presidency of John Silber also saw much expansion of the campus and programs. In the late 1970s, the Lahey Clinic vacated its building at 605 Commonwealth Avenue and moved to Burlington, Massachusetts. The vacated building was purchased by BU to house the School of Education. After arriving from the University of Texas in 1971, Silber set out to remake the university into a global center for research by recruiting star faculty. To protest the poor condition of Boston University's African-American curriculum, on April 25, 1968 (three weeks after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.), African-American students conducted a sit-in and locked BU president Arland F. Christ-Janer out of his office for 12 hours. Umoja, BU's Black Student Union, put forward ten demands to Christ-Janer and got nine of them approved that included the creation of a Martin Luther King Chair of Social Ethics, expansion of African-American library resources and tutoring services, opening an "Afro-American coordinating center," admission and selection of more Black students and faculty. No disciplinary action was taken against the students who only opened the chains after their demands were met. "There was no surprise, or feeling of victory on the students' parts," said Christ-Janer in response to the sit-in. "They had confidence in their demands, and I had a confidence in them. The late twentieth century saw a culmination in student activism at Boston University during the presidency of John R. On March 27, 1972, 50 police officers in "riot gear" defused a demonstration of 150 protesters at 195 Bay State Road, the BU Placement Office, where Marine recruiters were holding student interviews. A few protesters were arrested while some sustained minor injuries, including a student and two officers. Contrary to student claims of a peaceful protest, Silber said, "Civilization doesn't abdicate in face of barbarism. Those students or nonstudents who deliberately seek violent confrontation and refuse all efforts at peaceful resolution of issues must expect society to use its police power in its own defense." In response to Silber's decision of a forceful police intervention, the Faculty State conducted a vote on Silber's resignation which could not pass due to a "vote of 140-25 with 32 abstentions." As a result of this failed motion, Peter P. Gabriel resigned his position as the dean of Boston University's School of Management in protest of Silber's presidency and his "counterproductive" leadership. Silber's support of military recruitment on campus, which he pushed to make the university eligible for federal grants, caused other demonstrations. On March 16, 1978, about 900 Boston University students gathered at the George Sherman Union to protest against the $400 rise in tuition and $150 rise in housing charges declared by the trustees on March 7. The protest interrupted a board of trustees conference. While John Silber and Arthur G. B. Metcalf, chairman of the board of trustees, were negotiating with student government representatives to discuss the matter further on a separate occasion, the protesters marched into the building from two entrances, effectively trapping 40 trustees and 10 university administrators in the building for over thirty minutes. Twenty officers from the Boston University Police Department had to disperse the crowd from the stairwells. On April 5, 1979, several hundred faculty members, as well as clerical workers and librarians, went on strike. The faculty members were seeking a labor contract while the clerical workers and librarians were seeking union recognition. On November 27, 1979, the committee to Defend Iranian Students-composed of Iranian students, Youths Against Foreign Fascism and the Revolutionary Communist Party-held a demonstration at the George Sherman Union against the deposed Shah of Iran and the deportation of Iranian students from the US. "To the Iranian people, that man (the shah) is Adolf Hitler," students protested. "The Shah Must Face the Wrath of the People." This was met with chants of "God Bless America" from the opposing group. Following the trustees' push for the resignation of the university's eighth president, Jon Westling, they voted unanimously to offer the presidency of the university to Daniel S. Goldin, former administrator of NASA under presidents George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush. The university eventually terminated Goldin's contract at a cost of $1.8 million and initiated a second search to fill the presidential position, culminating with the inauguration of Robert A. Brown as the university's 10th president on April 27, 2006. In 2012, the university was invited to join the Association of American Universities, comprising 66 leading research universities in the United States and Canada. BU, one of four universities at the time invited to join the group since 2000, became the 62nd member. That same year, a $1 billion fundraising campaign was launched, its first comprehensive campaign, emphasizing financial aid, faculty support, research, and facility improvements. In 2016, the campaign goal was reached. The board of trustees voted to raise the goal to $1.5 billion and extend through 2019. The Charles River and Medical Campuses have undergone physical transformations since 2006, from new buildings and playing fields to dormitory renovations. The campus has seen the addition of a 26-floor student residence at 33 Harry Agganis Way, nicknamed StuVi2, the New Balance Playing Field, the Yawkey Center for Student Services, the Alan and Sherry Leventhal Center, the Law tower and Redstone annex, the Engineering Product Innovation Center (EPIC), the Rajen Kilachand Center for Integrated Life Sciences & Engineering, and the Joan and Edgar Booth Theatre, which opened in fall 2017. The construction of the Rajen Kilachand Center for Integrated Life Sciences & Engineering was funded by part of BU's largest ever gift, a $115 million donation from Rajen Kilachand. The Dahod Family Alumni Center in the renovated BU Castle began in May 2017 and was completed in fall 2018. Development of the university's existing housing stock has included significant renovations to BU's oldest dorm, 610 Beacon Street (formerly Myles Standish Hall) and Annex, and to Kilachand Hall, formerly known as Shelton Hall, and a brand new student residence on the Medical Campus. In May 2024, Boston University removed Myles Standish's name from the building. In September 2022, Robert A. Brown announced he will step down at the end of the 2022-2023 academic year. Brown began his presidency in September 2005, and his contract was set to run through 2025. Although Brown chose to end his presidency, he will resume teaching at the university. On August 1, 2023, Kenneth W. The university closed down due to the COVID-19 and shifted to online learning for the remainder of the semester on March 11, 2020. For the fall 2020 semester, BU offered a hybrid system that allows for students to decide whether to take a remote class or participate in-person. Larger classes would be broken down into smaller groups that rotate between online and in-person sessions. In August 2020, BU filed a service mark application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office to secure the phrase "F*ck It Won't Cut It" for a student-led COVID-19 safety program on campus. In July 2021, BU announced faculty and staff will be required to be vaccinated against COVID-19 for the fall 2022 semester. In October 2022, Boston University's National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories conducted research in a Biosafety Level 3 lab that modified the original strain of the virus that causes COVID-19 with the spike proteins of the Omicron variant. This resulted in a virus.
Read also: Bellevue College Mascot
Read also: History of Liberty's Flames
tags: #boston #university #mascot #history
