Name-a-Day Calendar, December 5: Bradley Braves
Page 29 of 365
Chosen in: 1937-ish
Chosen by: Athletic director and multisport coach A.J. Robertson
The first nickname for sports teams at what is now Bradley University was “Indians”. The school was one of the first to move away from that branding, but not for any reasons of social awareness or political correctness. A.J. Robertson — then their athletic director and coach of football, baseball, and basketball — decided in the 1930s to switch to “Braves” in a move the school claims was solely because too many other schools were also using “Indians” and they needed to be more distinct.
I couldn’t find a school source that lists the exact year the school made the switch, so I dug through the archives of their yearbook The Polyscope. The last year it references the “Indians” is 1933 and the first year it references the “Braves” is 1938. Perhaps the athletic department gradually shifted from one to the other. In any case, 1937-38 is the first year they were unequivocally the Braves.
Bradley continued to use Native American mascots and imagery in addition to the nickname until 1992, when they dropped all that and replaced it with a bobcat, which never caught on and was scrapped eight years later. In 2014, they introduced a gargoyle named Kaboom!1 and they’ve used it ever since.
Because they no longer used Native American imagery, Bradley faced decreased scrutiny in 2005, when the NCAA ruled that use of such imagery would result in offending schools being disallowed from participating in or hosting postseason events. This ruling, of course, also extended to nicknames like “Braves”, but the NCAA allowed that name to stick, determining that the name was not offensive if its usage was detached from Native American imagery.2
And so here Bradley stands with a gargoyle mascot to represent the Braves. Read the story of Kaboom! here.
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The exclamation point is part of the name!
I don’t really agree with this determination but I already said my piece on November 14. Thankfully, these are the only two Division I schools that use “Braves” as their nickname.