Name-a-Day Calendar, July 20: San Francisco Dons
Page 256 of 365
Chosen in: 1932
Chosen by: A committee of students, alumni, and school administrators
The current University of San Francisco was originally named for St. Ignatius, opening as St. Ignatius Academy in 1855 and becoming St. Ignatius College in 1859. The school’s men’s basketball program began in 1910, originally called the Grey Fog, as San Francisco is famously an extremely foggy city.
Then the school celebrated its 75th anniversary by changing its name from St. Ignatius College to the University of San Francisco. This meant the sports teams were now called the “San Francisco Grey Fog”, which I think sounds awesome, but evidently the city’s Junior Chamber of Commerce disagreed; they thought it was unappealing and requested the university replace it, a request the university fulfilled in November 1931.
Immediately, student newspaper The San Francisco Foghorn1 got to work on soliciting new nickname suggestions from students and alumni. And after the holiday season, university president Father Edward Whelan put together a committee of undergraduate students, alumni, and school administrators to sift through these suggestions and determine the winning nickname. Many of the possibilities were alliterative with the name of the city—Seagulls, Seals, Sea Lions2—but the committee didn’t choose any of these. Instead, in January 1932, they voted to select “Dons” as the school’s new athletics nickname.
If you’re at all familiar with Spanish, you probably know that “Don” is an honorific in that language, but the University of San Francisco claims it’s much more than that. I could explain it, but I’ll just let them do it.
The school’s mascot is a costumed Spanish Don named Don Francisco, a play on the name of inaugural San Francisco mayor Don Francisco de Haro.
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This newspaper still exists today.
The school cites university historian Alan Ziajka for this.