Name-a-Day Calendar, February 1: Florida A&M Rattlers
Page 87 of 365
Chosen in: The mid-1920s
Chosen by: College president John Robert Edward Lee
If you check Florida A&M University’s website right now, it’ll tell you the “Rattlers” nickname has its roots in the establishment of the school’s current campus at the former Highwood Plantation in 1891. Today, this area of Tallahassee is basically right in the middle of town, but back then, the city’s population was less than 3000 and the new A&M campus was on the outskirts. When school officials cleared the land to build the campus, they unearthed several rhumbas of rattlesnakes.
The story goes that these rattlesnakes left enough of an impression to eventually become a school symbol and, later on, the school mascot. If only it was that easy; not only have the events of this theory never been confirmed, but it’s also not the only theory on how the Rattlers got their name.
A second theory tells a somewhat familiar tale of yearning for a unique identity. John Robert Edward Lee is credited with putting Florida A&M athletics on the map, and he evidently named his teams the Tigers when he took over as college president in 1924. As A&M’s football program grew and began to play more regional opponents, they often faced Edward Waters College of Jacksonville, whose teams were also known as the Tigers. President Lee didn’t want fans to mix up the two HBCU Tigers, so he changed A&M’s nickname to “Rattlers”.
I like to think both theories are true. The Famuan sportswriter John Marsh, who in 2005 wrote a more expansive version of this article (which I am pulling from heavily), agrees and says that a “combination of each scenario may yield a more complete truth”. The way I see it, the event in the second theory likely spurred the nickname change while the first theory is likely why Lee landed on “Rattlers” as the new moniker. However, as I’ve said so often over the course of this series, this is nothing more than speculation.
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