Name-a-Day Calendar, January 21: Eastern Illinois Panthers
Page 76 of 365
Chosen in: 1930
Chosen by: Harland Baird, Paul Birthisel, and Thelma Brooks in a name-the-team contest
The first sports teams at what is now Eastern Illinois University had no official nickname and were simply identified by their school colors: “Blue and Gray”. In 1930, the staff of the Teachers College News student newspaper sought to change that. They held a contest to select the school’s official mascot, partnering with the local Fox Lincoln Theatre1 to present $52 worth of tickets to whoever submitted the winning entry.
Teachers College News sports editor Irvin Singler was joined by athletic director and head football coach Charles “Pop” Lantz and football captain Gene Kintz to pick the winning entry. They sifted through a bunch of suggestions. Some of them made a play on the school’s color scheme (Blue Battlers, Blue Boys,3 Blue Racers, Greyhounds) and others were based on Native American names and imagery (Ellini, Kickapoos, and even just “Indians”).
The winner, of course, was none of the above; the panel selected “Panthers” and announced it on October 16, 1930. This name was submitted by three separate contestants — Harland Baird, Paul Birthisel, and Thelma Brooks — so they split the prize.4 Nothing was ever revealed about why these contestants submitted “Panthers” or why the panel chose it as the winner.
Nearly a century later, Eastern Illinois’ men’s basketball team would pull off one of the biggest upsets in the history of the sport, waltzing into Iowa City as 31.5-point underdogs on December 21, 2022, and beating Iowa by the score of 92-83.
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This theatre closed in 1956 and the building has since cycled through several uses. Most recently, it was a bar and grill that closed in 2021. As far as I can tell, it’s now vacant. 611 Monroe Avenue.
$87.62 in 2022 dollars (inflation data for 2023 isn’t available yet)
I just want to draw more attention to this one. They could have been called the Eastern Illinois Blue Boys.
$5 can’t be split into even thirds. I wonder which unlucky winner only got $1.66 instead of $1.67.