Name-a-Day Calendar, April 14: Maryland Terrapins
Page 159 of 365
Chosen in: 1932
Chosen by: Football coach Dr. Curley Byrd
What is now the University of Maryland, College Park, began playing sports in the 1892-93 academic year, when they debuted their football and baseball teams. For most of their early history, these teams were known primarily as the Old Liners (owing to Maryland’s nickname, the Old Line State), though they were sometimes instead called the Aggies or the Farmers (owing to the university’s origins as an ag school).
In 1932, The Diamondback student newspaper1 began a search for an official mascot. This paper was named for the diamondback terrapin, the state reptile of Maryland, and the football team was then coached by Dr. Curley Byrd of Crisfield, Maryland, a Chesapeake Bay town known for its terrapins. Dr. Byrd suggested the terrapin as the school mascot and the student body at large agreed.
The mascot was officially christened in 1933, when that year’s graduating class gifted a bronze terrapin statue to the school. Its name, like the costumed terrapin mascots that have debuted since, is Testudo.
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The paper was called this even before the school’s athletic nickname became “Terrapins”.