Name-a-Day Calendar, July 17: Samford Bulldogs

Page 253 of 365

Chosen in: 1916 (technically 1965)

Chosen by: Student body vote

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The Samford Bulldogs were originally the Howard Tigers. The school was founded as Howard College in 1841. When they began playing men’s basketball in 1901 and football in 1902, their teams were called the Baptist Tigers, or just the Tigers for short. One problem: the school was located in Alabama, where Auburn’s sports teams had already established themselves as the Tigers. To avoid confusion, Howard dropped the nickname not long after they adopted it.

After a while, students desired a new nickname and mascot, so they held a vote to select one in December 1916. The two contenders were “Baptist Bears” and “Crimson Bulldogs”; it’s not clear who suggested either nickname but the latter won the vote by a 2:1 ratio. “Crimson Bulldogs” was almost immediately shortened to “Bulldogs” for all intents and purposes.

That gave us the Howard Bulldogs, but how’d “Samford” enter the fray? Well, in 1965, Howard College gained university status. They didn’t want to rename themselves Howard University because they thought it’d be too easy to confuse them with the Howard University in D.C.—they had already gone through one identity crisis, after all. So they instead renamed the school for longtime trustee Frank Park Samford. It’s been called Samford University, and its sports teams have been known as the Samford Bulldogs, ever since.

Samford is represented by an official costumed bulldog mascot, Spike, and an unofficial live bulldog mascot, Buxley.

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