Name-a-Day Calendar, December 6: Brown Bears
Page 30 of 365
Chosen in: 1904
Chosen by: Alumnus Theodore Francis Green
Brown University has played college sports longer than just about everyone else, their football team first taking the field in 1878. By the turn of the 20th century, the press had taken to calling their teams the Hilltoppers, but they didn’t have a mascot, to the dismay of students and alumni alike. Some students attempted to use a burro as a mascot in 1902 but it never caught on and was immediately scrapped. Local cartoonists attempted to draw something up in the years that followed but nothing gained popular acceptance.
Then, in 1904, alumnus Theodore Francis Green ‘87 put the search to rest basically overnight. He got a taxidermied bear head, labeled it “The Brown Bear”, and placed it in the trophy room of the student union. It became a hit almost instantly and the school’s teams were henceforth known as the Bears.
There’s a chance you’ve heard of Theodore Francis Green; he’s only one of the most influential people in the history of Rhode Island. Among many other accomplishments, he’d go on to serve two terms as Rhode Island’s governor from 1933-1937, then four terms as one of its U.S. Senators from 1937-1961, when he retired at the age of 93.1 The state’s international airport was named in his honor in 1938 and he was posthumously inducted into the Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame in 1972.
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At the time, he was the oldest sitting U.S. Senator in history. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina would later break this record by serving until age 100, retiring shortly before his death in 2003.