Name-a-Day Calendar, July 22: Santa Clara Broncos
Page 258 of 365
Chosen in: 1923, technically
Chosen by: Philosophy professor Hubert Flynn, S.J.
Santa Clara College was founded in 18511 and began playing football in 1896. This team and other Santa Clara teams that followed were originally known by several unofficial nicknames. Most of them played off the fact that the campus was built around Mission Santa Clara de Asís, one of the original California Missions; because of this (and the school’s Jesuit leadership), the teams were called the Friars, the Padres, the Mission Lads, and most popularly the Missionites. The teams were also, every now and then, called the Prunepickers on account of the Santa Clara Valley being a hotbed for dried fruit production.
Then, on February 23, 1923, through student newspaper The Santa Clara,2 the school asked the student body a simple question: “who are we?”. They—a committee including the vice president of the university, several deans, and the student body president—solicited nickname suggestions and offered a $53 prize to whomever submitted the one they deemed the best.
The committee originally planned to come to a decision in March, but they couldn’t agree on any single nickname. They did, per the March 26 issue of The Santa Clara, eliminate all but five: Eagles, Fighting Dons, Greyhounds, Leopards, and Panthers. Funnily enough, one of the suggestions rejected in this original discussion was “Broncos”.4 The committee invited more suggestions as they continued discussing their options, stating that they planned to make a final decision by April 5.
And in the next issue of The Santa Clara, we got that decision. Apparently paralyzed by indecision, the committee ended up deciding to keep the “Missionites” identity.5 A month and a half of talks, all for naught.
“Missionites” was now the official nickname of Santa Clara sports, but it wouldn’t stay that way for long. In November 1923, philosophy professor Hubert Flynn, S.J., patronized a local rodeo and was inspired enough by the display to re-suggest “Bronchos” as the school’s official identity. He explained in The Santa Clara:
“The Broncho is a native Western piece of dynamite, not too large, it is true, but hard as nails and always game to the core. He can kick with the very best of ‘em, and O boy! How the little devil can BUCK! When he takes a notion to cut loose in the open field, his SPEED outstrips the wind. Finally, nobody but a darn good man has ever been known to ride him, and at that never without getting his bumps aplenty.”
This suggestion came just before Santa Clara’s football game against bitter rival Saint Mary’s, a game in which Santa Clara was a moderate underdog. They ended up winning 10-9, and the ensuing Santa Clara game story referred to them almost exclusively as the “Bronchos”. That was that.
This alternate spelling with an H was common for the era, though not everywhere; the originally rejected suggestion earlier in the year did not use the H. The two spellings were used somewhat interchangeably for approximately four decades before the H was completely phased out by the mid-1960s.
Completing the identity, costumed mascot Bucky Bronco debuted in 1976.
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Became the University of Santa Clara in 1912 and Santa Clara University in 1984
This paper still exists today.
$89.21 in 2023 dollars
Other rejected nicknames: Beavers, Bees, Bloodhounds, Braves, Catamounts, Colorados, Crusaders, Eels, Fireflies, Pirates, Priors, Rangers, Red Men, Saxons, Spartans, Superbas, Tarantulas, Thamians (local Native American tribe), Vultures, Wolverines, and Dan Snyder’s favorite racial slur.
They awarded the monetary prize to W.F. Weston, the first person to suggest keeping the “Missionites” identity.