Mascot History: A Look at Michigan University's Mascots
Mascots are more than just high-fives and cute dance moves; they represent the spirit and identity of a university. Emerging in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, mascots initially involved real animals, often predators, brought to sports games for added entertainment. Over time, the concept evolved to include human figures and costumed characters. The stylistic changes to puppetry, influenced by Jim Henson's Muppets in the 1960s, also impacted mascot design. Let's explore the mascot history of several Michigan universities.
Michigan State University: Sparty the Spartan
Sparty the Spartan is arguably Michigan's most recognizable college mascot. Michigan State's mascot history began over a century ago when the college was a much smaller agricultural college. The team name was the "Aggies" back then.
In 1926, as the college expanded beyond agriculture, a poll led to the team name shifting to the "Michigan Staters." However, Lansing State Journal sports editor George Alderton, disliking the name, played a role in popularizing "Spartans." Alderton, a friend of Greek immigrants Stephen Scofes (who ran a Lansing restaurant called The Coffee Cup), suggested the name "Spartans" after Scofes' birthplace near Sparta, Greece. Alderton favored the name, drawing parallels between the East Lansing team and the Spartans' athletic prowess.
The mascot Sparty dates back to 1955, when members of the Theta Xi fraternity created a six-foot-tall, 60-pound papier-mâché Spartan head. This massive head boosted school spirit during a pep rally before a football game against Notre Dame. In subsequent years, a new fiberglass version reduced Sparty's weight by 30 pounds for a Rose Bowl game.
In 1989, Sparty underwent a facelift. The Alumni Association’s graphic designer at the time sketched Sparty’s current design-a muscular man in full body armor. Sparty made his official debut on Sept. 16, 1989. Today, the program preserves a longstanding tradition of having students portray the legendary Spartan, keeping the students’ identities confidential until graduation.
Read also: Respectful representation at CMU
University of Michigan: The Wolverine and the Elusive Mascot
The University of Michigan is a national anomaly among Big Ten universities; it doesn’t really have a mascot. Although the recognizable M logo easily elicits a response of “Go Blue!” anywhere in the Mitten State, the University of Michigan eschews having an actual mascot and seems quite happy with the decision. At one point in the school’s history, the University of Michigan Wolverines had an official mascot that went by the name of Biff. Biff’s story starts with the man behind the infamous Big House known as Michigan Stadium, Fielding Yost. Working as the school’s football coach at the time, Yost persuaded the University of Michigan regents to build a new stadium that would have the potential to host large capacities of fans for years to come. Michigan Stadium opened in 1927. University of Michigan students have been calling themselves Wolverines as far back as 1861, even though no one is quite sure who decided on the name. Yost theorized that the origin came from wolverine pelt trading at Sault Ste. Marie.
In the 1920s, Yost, seeking to one-up the Wisconsin Badgers (who amazed their audiences with a live badger on the field), brought two caged wolverines to the game, named Bennie and Biff. Biff seemed to take the spotlight as a would-be mascot for University of Michigan.
However, the wolverines, Biff and Bennie, proved too wild for the school to subdue. The pair of wild animals chewed through their cages and were aggressive towards the staff, so they were retired to captivity after just one season. Even when you acknowledge the historical basis of the mascot, the wolverine still seems like a unique, if not odd, choice. The carnivorous mammal is actually a member of the weasel family, known for its solitary, roaming lifestyle. Try to picture a wolverine in your head. It’s probably brown and furry, with big sharp teeth and claws, but is it the size of a dog? Is it hunched over? “A long time ago, it was difficult to get a good drawing of a wolverine that could turn into an actual mascot,” Hirth said. “Everybody likes the concept of a wolverine. That’s a ferocious beast.
The University of Michigan had several other attempts at mascots. In the late 1960s and mid-1970s, fox terriers became mascots of sorts on the football field, pushing a ball around the field during half-time. Another attempt came in the late 1980s, when three out-of-state students attempted to create Willy the Wolverine. One student was Eric Lefkofsky, who would go on to found Groupon. The student group used market research and trademarked the name in the interest of making money and eventually having Willy become official. Many students loved Willy the Wolverine, but University of Michigan officials were not interested in the mascot. Though students advocated for Willy the Wolverine by naming the 1990 student directory after him and having him serve as the grand marshal of the 1989 homecoming parade, the University of Michigan was firmly against the mascot.
The push for an official University of Michigan mascot has been fairly quiet since Willy the Wolverine. In 2011, athletic director Dave Brandon was interested in a mascot revival for University of Michigan, citing the opportunities for engagement with fans.
Read also: Evolution of the Oregon Mascot
Since the earliest days of recorded University of Michigan history (as early as 1861), the students and alumni have been referring to themselves as “Wolverines”. While this moniker has proven successful for over a hundred years of intercollegiate sports, what is the reason for it? The simplest reason for the wolverine nickname would be that the animal was abundant in Michigan for some time. However, all evidence points otherwise, as there has never been a verified trapping of a wolverine inside the state’s borders, nor have skeletal remains of a wolverine been found in the 96,705 square miles that comprise Michigan. The truth is that there is no truly known reason why the Wolverine was chosen as a nickname.
The great Michigan football coach Fielding H. Yost had a theory for the nickname, which he wrote about in the Michigan Quarterly in 1944. Yost felt the reason for the nickname concerned the trading of wolverine pelts which occurred in Sault St. Marie for many years. The trading station served as an exchange between the Indians and other trappers and fur traders, who would eventually ship the products of to the Eastern United States. Eight years later in the Michigan Quarterly Review of 1952, Albert H. Marckwardt presented another theory for the “wolverine” name. Marckwardt’s reasoning is based when Michigan was first settled by the French in the late 1700s. The last theory surrounds the border dispute between Michigan and Ohio in 1803. While the two sides argued over proper setting of the state line, The Michiganders were called wolverines. It was unclear, however, whether the Michigan natives pinned the name upon themselves to show their tenacity and strength or whether Ohioans chose the name on account of the gluttonous habit of the wolverine.
While wild wolverines exist in Oregon, Montana, Washington, Colorado, Wyoming, California, and parts of Canada, there are no wild wolverines in Michigan. Despite the wolverine’s ferocity, Fielding Yost set out to find one in 1923, upon seeing Wisconsin carrying live badgers along with its football team. Yost’s desire met with difficulty, as the coach had problems finding a dealer in live wolverines. After a letter to 68 trappers yielded no mascot for his team. Yost expanded his wish to any wolverine, alive or dead. Yost finally got word of a mounted wolverine belonging to Michigan Senator, William Alden Smith, and made a deal to secure the wolverine for his team. Yost was able to obtain a mounted wolverine from the Hudson Bay Fur Company in the fall of 1924, but his quest for a live one continued.
In 1927, 10 wolverines were obtained from Alaska and placed in the Detroit Zoo. However, the animals grew larger and more ferocious, and as Yost states, “It was obvious that Michigan mascots had designs on the Michigan men toting them, and those designs were no means friendly.” Therefore the practice of bringing wolverines into the stadium had to be discontinued after only one year. However, one of the wolverines was not returned to the zoo. Instead “Biff” was put in a cage at the University of Michigan Zoo where students were able to visit him at times. In 1937, the Chevrolet Motor Company donated a wolverine (as well as a cage to keep it in), to the University of Michigan.
When you’re a prospective freshman touring the University of Michigan, your tour guide will tell you an anecdote about how wherever you go in the world, you’ll see a block M. Maybe it’s just new car syndrome, maybe it’s infectious school spirit, but I have seen this to be true. Our university’s student body has many epithets. We are Victors, Valiant. We are the Leaders and the Best. We are Wolverines.
Read also: Bellevue College Mascot
Unlike the University of Michigan, most D1 colleges have some sort of mascot. The term mascot derived from an 1880s French opera called “La Mascotte,” loosely translating to “lucky charm.” In the opera, a struggling farmer is repeatedly visited by a young girl. By the 1900s, the term “mascot” was widely used as a reference to such talismen. Eventually, the term became synonymous with the costumed pep squad members who dance on the sidelines between plays. Our biggest rivals, the Spartans and the Buckeyes, parade their mascots across the field at contentious matches to rile up the crowd.
It has been nearly a century since the University embraced the wolverine as its mascot. In 1923, U-M football coach Fielding Yost was inspired by a University of Wisconsin tradition of players carrying along live badgers when the team entered the stadium. The school got its mascot from the longstanding nickname belonging to Michiganders in general. The origin of this nickname is debated. Yost thought it traced back to a colonial-era fur trade running out of eastern Michigan which dealt primarily in wolverine pelts. Others think it derives from an insult waged against the gluttonous French settlers or the state’s mischievous soldiers operating during the Michigan/Ohio border disputes. Yost contacted 68 different trappers but eventually had to settle for a taxidermied wolverine named Biff in 1924.
Even when you acknowledge the historical basis of the mascot, the wolverine still seems like a unique, if not odd, choice. The carnivorous mammal is actually a member of the weasel family, known for its solitary, roaming lifestyle.
There are lots of answers to the question, why doesn’t U-M have a mascot? You could say that we’ve tried it in the past, but we could never perfect it. You could brush it off, saying we don’t need one - they’re silly and below us. As for now, the block M is supporting the school’s brand just fine.
Biff was a wolverine who served as a team mascot at University of Michigan football games and was later kept in a small zoo at the University of Michigan in the 1920s and 1930s. In 1923, after seeing the University of Wisconsin football team carry live badgers at games, University of Michigan athletic director and football coach Fielding H. Yost decided to procure a wolverine. Despite writing letters to 68 trappers, Yost was reportedly unable to find a wolverine. The best he could do in 1924 was to obtain a mounted and stuffed wolverine from the Hudson's Bay Company. The stuffed wolverine was named “Biff” and was featured on the cover of a 1925 game program, along with team captain Robert J. Brown straining to hold Biff on a leash. The caption to the photograph read: “Capt.
In the 1960s, as our rivals were workshopping foam-suited jesters to convey their school’s likeness, the University invited a pair of dogs to perform at halftime. In the 1980s, students campaigned to establish Willy the Wolverine as the school’s official mascot. And in 2011, athletic director David Brandon teased at revisiting the idea. The M Den is the official merchandise retailer of Michigan Athletics. “It just speaks to what the University is,” Hirth said. “A lot of other universities have an official mascot.
Hirth spent his childhood in The M Den, just like me. When Hirth was 10, his father opened up The M Den with a partner. Hirth and his other co-owners worked in the store their whole lives. Hirth said that the U-M branding has stayed consistent over the years. The best-sellers are always navy shirts or sweatshirts with the block M or block Michigan lettering. In recent years, the “sailor vault logo,” which Hirth describes as “kind of like a bear with a sailor hat on,” has risen in popularity.
“It’s not like we haven’t tried to carry different looks over the years,” Hirth said. “The word wolverines almost never appears on Michigan products and if it does, it usually doesn’t sell as well. The M Den is unique in the collegiate athletics retailing industry. The M Den is also an exclusive partner with Michigan Athletics, so it has to ensure that all locations - the stadium, the mall, downtown, online - stay stocked through the year. “Everybody else has a mascot,” Hirth said. Still, Hirsh said that the basics - the maize lettering on a navy background - “warm his heart.” There is a special unifying message in adorning the same block M my dad wore when he was on campus, and his dad before him. The University is a pretty old school, being that it was among the first public universities founded in the United States. “Just like there’s no advertising in our football stadium, we don’t have a mascot,” Hirth said. The University walks a fine line between two competing realms of collegiate philosophy: education and enrichment. People choose their college based on whether they’d like to work or whether they’d rather just have fun. Perhaps that dichotomy has influenced the school’s leadership over generations, pushing them away from the pandering mascot veneration which characterizes our rivals: our mascot denial sets us apart, proving our fastidiousness to the academic realm of university programming.
Nevertheless, the wolverine moniker is still included in the University’s zeitgeist, whether we champion it with a mascot or not. In 2004, a wild wolverine was spotted on Michigan land for the first time in recorded history. Yet at that moment, no one considered its historical ties to fur traders or combatants at the border. Biff and Bennie, the taxidermied progeny of Yost’s original coveted pair, are still displayed on campus. They both live on the shelves above check out at the M Den, one on State Street and the other at the stadium. There, they sit as the clothing racks below them rotate through collections of the same traditional merchandise year after year.
Wayne State University: From Tartars to Warriors
Though Wayne State University is Michigan’s third-largest university, its football team is in NCAA Division II, a different league than the top-tier Division I, where you’ll find Michigan State University and University of Michigan. Wayne State University’s team name was originally the Tartars, chosen via student poll back in 1927. The term Tartar refers to the idea of fear-invoking people living east of Europe during the time of the Mongolian Empire in the 13th century. Though the name has some historical overlaps with other terms, the name Tartar was derived from the Greek/Latin term “Tartarus” meaning the underworld, or basically, hell. When Wayne State University chose this name for their team, there might have been confusion with the Tartar people resulting from a belief that Tartar was synonymous with Mongol.
In 1999, at a time when many schools were re-evaluating stereotypical mascots based on race, the problematic Tartar mascot and team got a rebranding. W the Warrior has certainly made headway in the battle to be more current. The mascot can be seen leading official viral parody videos for the university like the “Harlem Shake” (as Harlem Shake Wayne State Style) and “What Does The Fox Say?” (as What Does The W Say?).
Michigan Technological University: Blizzard T. Husky
With Michigan Technological University being located in Michigan’s northern reaches of the Keweenaw Peninsula, the snow-loving husky makes perfect sense for a mascot. In fact, the current mascot, Blizzard T. Husky, is actually a gender-neutral mascot that’s supposedly 350 years old (in dog years).
Michigan Tech’s earliest sporting history involves a vague history of huskies on the sports field, but the first mascots portrayed by humans were a little different. Husband-and-wife team Bill and Kathy Wassberg used an upcycled locker costume and a modified clown costume to portray the first mascot team, Bear and Mouse. The Bear and Mouse mascots were portrayed by other students into the 1980s, with Bear being phased out in the latter half of the ’80s. Students chanted things such as “Where’s the Bear?” and “The Mouse is in the house!” as Wolf began to replace Bear. In 1997, a contest was held to give Wolf an official name. Blizzard T. Husky has been up to all kinds of canine mischief and fun since taking over as mascot. Their most infamous caper includes getting onto the VIP list at the space shuttle Discovery’s final launch at NASA in November 2010.
Grand Valley State University: Louie the Laker
Grand Valley State University is one of Michigan’s younger universities, having been established in 1960. But this Grand Rapids-area university has only grown in popularity. Grand Valley State University’s team name started as the Bruisers, a name chosen from its team colors of black and blue. But in 1965, GVSU students decided to hold contest submissions for a new team name. The student body settled on the Lakers, a write-in suggestion in the contest, which remains the team name today. Briefly, in 1975, a task force recommended changing the team name to Sawyers, citing difficulty creating a logo for Lakers and the competition with colleges like Lake Superior State College.
The GVSU mascot started out as the Great Laker, a creation of the university marketing department. Unlike most mascots, the Great Laker originally involved an actor in costume, not a mascot head. When athletic director Tim Selgo arrived in 1996, he had a burst of inspiration for a new mascot. He was traveling to Saginaw for a softball tournament just a few months after starting at GVSU. He and his assistant director wanted an alliterative name. Larry the Laker was the first name suggested, which the assistant director shut down. The appearance of Louie the Laker was based loosely on a crew member of the legendary sunken American Great Lakes freighter in Lake Superior, the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald. Louie the Laker’s original appearance involved a giant foam head that was around 3 or 4 feet tall. He also wore a football jersey, but this attire resulted in heckling from the crowd at University of California, Davis.
Oakland University: Grizz and Clawzz
Oakland University is one of the better-known universities in the metro Detroit area and its mascot, Grizz, is quite recognizable. Oakland University started as a satellite campus of Michigan State University in 1959. Matilda Dodge Wilson, the widow of a co-founder of the Dodge motor vehicle company, donated the land of present-day OU for Michigan State University’s usage. Student Charles “Chick” Conklin created Pioneer Pete in 1979. He joined the cheerleading team and dressed up as Oakland’s first mascot with a leather jacket, moccasins, and a fur hat.
In 1998, Oakland University left NCAA Division II and entered the Division I ranking. They decided they needed a fiercer mascot to match, so they created a Mascot Advisory Committee. The committee wanted an animal-based mascot with regional ties that was gender- and race-neutral. Thus, Grizz was born. Originally, Grizz was a bright yellow, often described as a “big yellow gummy bear.” From his debut in 1998 until 2007, Grizz kept the gummy bear look, but in 2007 his image was updated to the fuzzy brown look he has today. He even got his own “Scrappy Doo” in the form of Clawzz, a somewhat smaller bear mascot, in 2009.
Eastern Michigan University: From Hurons to Eagles
Since the 1960s, the use of Native American and First Nations names and images in sports teams has been the subject of public discussion and controversy. Eastern Michigan University decided on the team name of Hurons in 1929. Before that, the EMU teams had gone by the uninspiring name the Normalites. The name stuck until 1988, when the Michigan Department of Civil Rights issued a report advising schools with Native American names, logos, and mascots to drop such imagery. At the time, three other colleges, 62 high schools, and 33 middle schools in Michigan used such imagery.
In 1991, the EMU Board of Regents voted to drop the Hurons name and replace it with the Eagles. EMU was one of the first schools in the country to do this in response to controversy surrounding stereotypes. The shift from Hurons to Eagles was contentious and remains so for some alumni. The current mascot was adopted in 1994. He is an American bald eagle that goes by the name Swoop. His name is most notably featured on the campus food pantry, called Swoop’s.
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