Name-a-Day Calendar, August 1: South Dakota State Jackrabbits
Page 268 of 365
Chosen in: Probably 1907
Chosen by: Probably the editors of The Jack Rabbit yearbook
A common misconception floats around regarding the origin of South Dakota State University’s (SDSU) “Jackrabbits” nickname—a misconception that permeates even SDSU’s official website. That misconception is that this nickname came from a 1905 football game between South Dakota State and Minnesota. The story goes that in this game, South Dakota State’s team evidently impressed enough for the Minneapolis Tribune1 game story to describe their players as being “as fast as jackrabbits”. They even drew a cartoon of a jackrabbit to accompany the story.
Most of this is true. The most crucial detail isn’t: the game was actually against South Dakota. South Dakota State wouldn’t play Minnesota in football until 1916. It was the Coyotes who made the trek to Minneapolis, with the Tribune evidently unaware of South Dakota’s team using that nickname, which had been coined three years earlier.2 The cartoon wasn’t a flattering one either; South Dakota lost the game 81-0 and the Tribune displayed a jackrabbit running head first into a brick wall.
In all likelihood, the “Jackrabbits” moniker likely came two years later. SDSU—which was founded in 1881 as Dakota Agricultural College and became the South Dakota State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts in 19043—began playing football in 1900, its teams at first using no official nickname. Then, in 1907, the junior class began what was at the time a fairly common tradition in higher education: they put together a yearbook.
They named this yearbook The Jack Rabbit,4 though both the “jack rabbit” and “jackrabbit” spellings were used interchangeably throughout the volume. It’s unclear why exactly the juniors chose this title, but it’s almost certainly a nod to the white-tailed jackrabbit, a common hare in the region. South Dakota State’s teams would gradually take on the one-word “Jackrabbits” nickname following the publication of this issue.
South Dakota State’s costumed jackrabbit mascot is named…Jack Rabbit, a name coined in a 2010 contest after the mascot had previously been unnamed for decades.
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This paper would later merge with the Minneapolis Daily Star and is now the popular Star Tribune.
The Minnesota Daily, the Minnesota student newspaper, correctly used the “Coyotes” nickname.
Later gaining university status and renaming itself South Dakota State University in 1962
This yearbook is no longer being produced.