Name-a-Day Calendar, April 24: Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders
Page 169 of 365
Chosen in: 1934
Chosen by: Football player Charles Sarver
Middle Tennessee State Normal School was founded in 1911 and began playing sports within a couple years. Because they were a teachers college, their first teams were known unofficially by a few education-based nicknames, including Normalites, Pedagogues, and Teachers, though “Normalites” mostly fell out of use after 1925, when the school changed its name to Middle Tennessee State Teachers College.
After a couple decades of this, the school figured they should come up with an official nickname, so they partnered with the Murfreesboro Daily News Journal in 1934 to hold a nickname contest. At the time, Colgate was near the top of the college football world. In 1932, they played nine games, won all of them, scored 264 points, and allowed zero: an impressive feat no matter how weak their schedule was.1
So, for Middle Tennessee’s nickname contest, football player Charles Sarver took inspiration from the best. Colgate was nicknamed the Red Raiders, but Middle Tennessee’s primary school color was blue, so Sarver flipped “Red Raiders” to “Blue Raiders”. This submission won Sarver the contest and its $52 prize.
The nickname has persisted for almost a century since then, even as the school was renamed Middle Tennessee State College in 1943 and finally Middle Tennessee State University in 1965. The school’s mascot history is a little complicated, but the mascot they’ve successfully settled on, introduced in 1998, is a Pegasus named Lightning.
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It was pretty dang weak but, for this feat, they were named co-national champions post facto by historian Parke H. Davis, an officially recognized NCAA selector. They share this claim with Michigan (7-0; outscored opponents 123-12) and USC (10-0; outscored opponents 201-13 and demolished then-unbeaten Pitt 35-0 in the Rose Bowl). You could probably guess that USC is most commonly considered the national champion for this season.
$112.63 in 2023 dollars
Ok i think it's kinda biased that they literally picked their own player for their nickname... like "hey Murfreesbro, pick a nickname!" And then they picked their OWN PLAYER'S IDEA?!?! Like i think that that guy may have talked to some higher-ups at MTSU to have the Blue Raiders exist
It's such a bland nickname too... something I would make when I was seven like "what's cool? ooh a raider! what's my favorite color? Blue!"
They should never have switched from the Normalites.