Name-a-Day Calendar, August 31: Texas State Bobcats
Page 298 of 365
Chosen in: 1919
Chosen by: Biology department head C. Spurgeon Smith on a mascot committee
Southwest Texas State Normal School was founded in 1899 and began playing football in 1904. This and the other early sports teams at the school, intercollegiate and otherwise, had no official nickname. In the school’s infancy, these teams went by several unofficial nicknames, often switching monikers year after year. Nicknames (some of which were for women’s teams) included Goblins, Nymphs, Topsies, Sprites, Wonders, and that one anti-Romani slur.
In 1919, this was deemed unacceptable, and The Normal Star student newspaper pushed to adopt one unifying mascot. The student council formed a committee to this end and installed C. Spurgeon Smith, the head of the biology department, as the chair. While discussing options with the committee, Smith threw his own suggestion into the hat: the bobcat, on account of its real-life ubiquity in Central Texas, where the school is located, and its fighting spirit. The committee chose this suggestion and the Bobcats were born, making what would eventually become Texas State University the first college in the United States to adopt the bobcat as its mascot.
The school underwent four more name changes1 before their teams became the “Texas State Bobcats” in 2003 as the school became Texas State University–San Marcos.2 Texas State’s mascot is a costumed bobcat named Boko.
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Southwest Texas State Normal College in 2018, Southwest Texas State Teachers College in 1923, Southwest Texas State College in 1959, and Southwest Texas State University in 1969
Then there was another name change in 2013 to drop “San Marcos” and become simply Texas State University.