Chosen in: 1896
Chosen by: Local newspapers
Quite a few teams with common animal nicknames earned those nicknames in game action by playing “with the ferocity of bulldogs” or “as viciously as wildcats” or something like that. And this is also true for Louisiana State University…if their team was a regiment of Confederate soldiers.
When LSU began their football program in 1893, they were coached by university professor and administrator Charles E. Coates. In 1896, the team became officially known as the Tigers. Coates had been replaced as coach by then, but it’s his 1937 account that confirms the origins of the Tigers nickname.
“The Louisiana Tigers had represented the state in Civil War and had been known for their hard fighting. This name was applied collectively to the New Orleans Zouaves, the Donaldsonville Cannoniers, and to a number of other Louisiana companies sent to Virginia, who seemed to have the faculty of getting into the hardest part of the fighting and staying there, most of them permanently. One company I knew of went in 200 strong; only 28 returned and many of these were wounded.
“So ‘Louisiana Tigers’ went into the New Orleans papers and became our permanent possession.”
In 2017, a petition to LSU to change their nickname gained minor traction and got some news coverage. It went about as well as you’d expect.
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