Name-a-Day Calendar, December 16: Campbell Fighting Camels
Page 40 of 365
Chosen in: 1934
Chosen by: Nobody knows, but there are a few theories
What is now Campbell University called their sports teams the Hornets until January 1934, when they rather unceremoniously switched to “Camels”. Why? Nobody truly knows! It’s been a source of endless frustration among the university community for decades.
That isn’t to say there aren’t popular theories. I highly recommend reading this article from Billy Liggett, the university’s Director of News & Publications, to learn about all of them in depth, but here’s a short list:
The most popular theory and the one most often cited officially: university founder J.A. Campbell was distraught after watching his campus burn down on December 20, 1900, stating that “there’s no chance to go on”. His friend Zachary Taylor Kivett, in an attempt to console him and spur him back to action, asked him “why are you in bed? Time’s wastin’! I thought Campbells had a hump on them.”
In 1940, the son of Dean of Women Linda Bouldin was designing nameplates for each of Campbell’s female students for a banquet. He needed an image to accompany the plates and “derived, from the name Campbell, the word Camel”.
A friend of J.A. Campbell, D. Rich, was a rich man, contributing more than $400,000 to the university in his life and leaving $160,000 more upon his death in 1924.1 He was also the treasurer for the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, which manufactured the popular Camel brand of cigarettes.2 The theory is that Rich or the company made some sort of secret agreement with school administrators to switch their mascot, but waited until 1934 — when J.A. Campbell was in poor health — to put it into effect, as the founder abhorred tobacco and never would have signed off on it himself.
Liggett seems to imply that theory #3 is the true answer and I’m inclined to agree. Though there’s no definitive proof confirming or denying it, Liggett did find that the school owned 3622 shares of stock in the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company in 1940, suggesting that the school had a vested interest in the company’s success. The other two theories also don’t fit within the timeline at all, as the first came decades before the name change and the second came after it.
However they got their name, Campbell’s Camels are certainly among the most unique mascots in sports. Yes: mascots, plural; they’ve always had their male camel Gaylord, and they recently reintroduced their female camel Gladys. And if her intro video doesn’t get you hype for the Camels, I don’t know what will.
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The $560,000 total at the time of his death in 1924 is equal to $9,759,457 in 2022 dollars.
Both of those sentences are factual and not explicitly part of the theory that follows.