Name-a-Day Calendar, January 17: Drexel Dragons
Page 72 of 365
Chosen in: Gradually over the late 1920s; definitely by 1928
Chosen by: No one in particular
The Drexel Institute of Art, Science, & Industry was founded in 1891 and had already started playing intercollegiate football and men’s basketball by 1895. Their teams were usually just called by their school colors, “Blue and Gold”, though “Engineers” and “Drexelites” were also somewhat common.
University sources claim that the “Dragons” nickname came to be gradually and unofficially. Apparently, people just started calling their teams the “Dragons” because it was alliterative and sounded cool. The first appearance of the nickname in Drexel’s student newspaper, The Triangle, came on October 17, 1928, but given the grassroots origins of the nickname, it was certainly used in a less official capacity before this time.
A costumed dragon mascot would debut in 1929. The school would cycle through several costumes, as it became Drexel Institute of Technology in 1936 and then Drexel University in 1970, before debuting their current mascot Mario the Magnificent in 1997.
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