Braves, Bulldogs, Bobcats: A history of Beloit College mascots
Student debates, campus rivalries, and a surprise write-in campaign all shaped how Beloit’s teams came to be known as the Buccaneers.
In February 1949, sports columnist Jim McCarthy ’49 reported in The Round Table that the Omicron Delta Kappa fraternity men had proposed a new moniker for the college’s athletic teams. They weren’t the first to grumble about the team’s older nicknames — the “Gold,” the college’s first nickname dating to the late 1800s, and “Blue Devils,” a nickname adopted in the mid-1920s that projected wicked, if depressed, mischief.
Credit: Beloit College Archives
“The Beloit Braves!” McCarthy wrote in his column. “Yes, it is my opinion that Beloit College is in a dire need of a new nickname… ‘Braves’ seems to be as good a one as has been suggested. Most schools in the conference have good symbolic names which typify the fighting spirit of their Alma Mater. Also, Beloit’s present nicknames are not easily symbolized for use in such things as homecoming decorations or uniform designs. The ‘Braves’ is also historically sound in as much as our school is located upon the territory once inhabited by Indian tribes, as evidence by the mounds on our campus.”
However, “Braves” did not sit well with everyone. In McCarthy’s column in the following issue, he wrote: “A few individuals on campus just don’t like the ‘Braves.’ Therefore, a poll will be conducted the night of the Duquesne game to determine the choice of the students…It will be a direct ballot, and the three names up for consideration will be ‘Braves,’ ‘Bulldogs,’ and the ‘Bobcats.’ These were suggested by various organizations on campus, and we will accept other suggestions that are submitted before Monday noon by any group. By the way, Coach Stanley has stated that his squad will accept the nickname chosen by the student body and will carry that name into the NAIB tournament, providing Beloit receives an invitation.”
In fact, Coach Dolph Stanley’s basketball team was in the midst of one of its most stellar of many stellar seasons, on its way to once again handily winning the Midwest Conference championship and a 29-4 record against competition from much larger schools such as Brigham Young, San Diego State University, Valparaiso University, and Bowling Green. They reached the semifinals in the NAIB invitational in Kansas City that year, only losing to the eventual winner of the tournament, Hamline University.
McCarthy was still plugging for the “Braves” in the Feb. 25 issue of The Round Table, one day before the deciding vote. “It is a writer’s dream as far as jargon is concerned. For example, ‘Braves scalp Vikings’ or ‘Braves on warpath against Carleton.’” He favored “Bobcats” second, since only one other college at that time used the name. “Bulldogs,” he simply noted, “is up for consideration due to the fact that Beloit is known as ‘The Yale of the Midwest,’ and the Bulldogs is the Eli’s famous symbol.”
On Saturday night, Feb. 26, hundreds of students lined up at the Beloit College Field House before the basketball game against Duquesne. They carefully perused their ballots, and voted. The result was a big surprise.
The newly-chosen nickname achieved front page status in the March 4 edition of The Round Table. Two seniors, Jim Duffy ’49 and Jack Harr ’49 had successfully campaigned for “Buccaneers” as a write-in candidate. “This name, which can be shortened to ‘Bucs,’ received 546 of the 708 votes cast. Braves, Bulldogs, and Bobcats placed second, third and fourth respectively,” reported The Round Table “By choosing ‘Buccaneers,’ the name sponsored by Jim Duffy and Jack Harr, Beloit College became the first college in the country to have this nickname.”
Jim McCarthy was quick to jump on the Buccaneer bandwagon: “I believe they made an excellent choice! To some of you it may not seem to fit as well as other suggested names, but with use it should become very popular. It certainly is original…and there are certainly a great number of synonyms for it, such as Pirates or Corsairs. Hats off to the students for their fine selection.”
Credit: Beloit College ArchivesDuffy and Harr worked for the college’s publicity office as students and traveled with the basketball team to report on games for the Beloit College News Service. “I got totally caught up in my work with Beloit athletics,” Duffy, who went on to become president of ABC-TV, recalled in his autobiography, “to the point where Harr and I were instrumental in a write-in contest of giving a new nickname, ‘the Buccaneers’ to the Beloit teams. Our sometimes by-lined stories about the Beloit teams — especially basketball — appeared in publications across the country. It served us well as writers, with our reference to ‘the swashbuckling Buccaneers of Beloit College,’ ‘the Golden Bucs of Beloit,’ ‘Beloit’s Bucket Brigade,’ and so on.”
And so the Buccaneer became the mascot for Beloit College for decades to come.
From “Fridays with Fred,” published online Jan. 20, 2011.
