Name-a-Day Calendar, April 13: Marshall Thundering Herd
Page 158 of 365
Chosen in: 1925 unofficially, then 1965 officially
Chosen by: Huntington Herald-Dispatch sportswriter Duke Ridgley, then ratified by student body vote
The sports teams at what is now Marshall University were first known as the Indians, but thankfully this didn’t last long, beginning just before the turn of the 20th century and ending around 1910. At that point, the teams’ uniforms were already the green they still are today and many fans began to call them the Big Green.
In 1925, acclaimed Western author Zane Grey published The Thundering Herd, spawning a silent film of the same name from Paramount Pictures later that year. Meanwhile, Marshall’s football team opened their 1925 season at home against Glenville on September 26 and won 26-0. In his game story for the Huntington Herald-Dispatch, sportswriter Charles V. “Duke” Ridgley referred to the Marshall men as the Thundering Herd, taking inspiration from the film. Locals thought this sounded cool and the name stuck, though “Big Green” continued to be used as well.
But not everyone liked “Thundering Herd” as a nickname. For one, despite having “West” in its name, West Virginia is not a Western state and the image of stampeding bison does not evoke thoughts of West Virginia. In addition, the nickname had nothing to do with school namesake John Marshall, a judge who served as Chief Justice of the United States from 1801-1835.
Things got even more muddied in 1933 when rogue Huntington Advertiser sportswriter Dug Freutel got fed up with the “Thundering Herd” nickname’s lack of connection to their home state and started calling Marshall’s teams the “Boogercats”. This was apparently supposed to be a play on Scotland’s famed bogie cats but, for the life of me, I can’t tell why he switched “bogie” to “booger” or what that had to do with West Virginia either. At this point, Marshall was having a full-on identity crisis, so their alumni association hastily held a vote to determine which nickname they should keep; “Thundering Herd” won.
That should have settled it, right? Apparently not. “Boogercats” died, but “Big Green” continued to be used in conjunction with “Thundering Herd” despite the results of the vote. This continued until 1958, when the student body finally moved to settle on just one nickname and held another vote, which “Big Green” won.1
This vote didn’t do anything either, as sportswriters completely ignored it and continued calling Marshall’s teams the Thundering Herd. Doesn’t anyone here know how democracy works?
Well, okay, certainly there’s some way the school can get people to make up their minds. Have they tried a committee yet? Bureaucracy loves committees! No? Okay, then a committee it is.
In 1964, university president Stewart Smith appointed a combination of nine faculty members and students to decide on a permanent identity. As you’d expect, the committee settled on “Big Green” and “Thundering Herd” as frontrunners, but they also threw in “Rams”, suggested by former alumni association president Leonard Samworth.
The final student body vote on this matter occurred on January 5, 1965, and it was decisive: over 85% of voters wanted Marshall to be called the Thundering Herd.
And this time, it stuck. Marshall’s teams have been unequivocally called the Thundering Herd to this day. These days, “Big Green” is the name of Marshall’s booster club.
Previous page: Marquette Golden Eagles
Next page: Maryland Terrapins
Find every page at the Name-a-Day Calendar hub!
The choices in this vote were “Big Green”, “Thundering Herd”, and “Green Gobblers”, the last of which was added because some students bought a turkey. Sure, why not?