Name-a-Day Calendar, August 2: South Florida Bulls
Page 269 of 365
Chosen in: c. 1980
Chosen by: It was a simplification of the previous nickname
The University of South Florida was established in 1956. In 1962, the new school’s student government figured they needed a mascot, so they held a contest to select one. The student body voted on the suggestions and the winner was clear: they’d be the South Florida Buccaneers.
Except they wouldn’t. One of the rules of the contest was that the mascot couldn’t already be representing another Florida college. The student government vetoed the buccaneer because they were under the impression that this mascot broke that rule. So they decided that the second place finisher, the “golden brahma”, would be the new South Florida mascot.
The student who suggested this mascot, whose name has been lost to time, figured that since Florida is proficient in cattle production like Texas, they should also have a school mascot based on cattle, similar to the Texas Longhorns. A brahma is a breed of cattle. Er…wait, no, that’s a brahman. A brahma is…a breed of chicken. Somebody should probably tell them.
But first, a completely different correction: there was no other school in Florida that had a buccaneer mascot. The one the student government thought had a buccaneer mascot actually had a pirate mascot, which is totally different.1 So they reversed their veto and installed the buccaneer as mascot.
This upset the supporters of the golden brahma, as they felt they’d been cheated out of a win. So there was another vote—this one between just the two finalists: golden brahma vs. buccaneer. In this faux-ranked-choice vote, the golden brahma won once and for all.
Following this announcement, a local newspaper let the school know that a brahma was actually a chicken and not the bull they thought it was. South Florida made the correction and all was well.
The Golden Brahmans first took the court in men’s basketball in 1970. Within a decade, the lengthy moniker was, more often than not, replaced with the simpler “Bulls”. Eventually, the switch was all but official.
As for the Buccaneers…some other Tampa team would end up claiming that identity in 1976.
South Florida is currently represented by a costumed bull named Rocky.
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As far as I can tell, we don’t actually know which school this was.