Name-a-Day Calendar, July 6: Rider Broncs
Page 242 of 365
Chosen in: 1949
Chosen by: Rider News sportswriter George Abbott
Rider University can be traced all the way back to a business school in 1865,1 but Rider athletics didn’t get their start until 1928. For this, we have Basketball Hall-of-Famer Clair Bee2 to thank, as he served as the school’s first director of athletics and founded their football, men’s basketball, and baseball programs. Bee took it upon himself to nickname his teams; he called them the Roughriders, as “Rider Roughriders” sounded catchy to him.
This was the sole nickname for Rider athletics for about two decades. Then came George Abbott. Abbott joined the staff of the Rider News student newspaper in April 1949. His first credited issue was published on April 8 of that year, and it was in that issue that the current “Broncs” nickname started to take shape, as the headline for a baseball game story read “Broncos’ Last-Frame Rally Fails; West Chester Takes Opener, 7-6”.
The paper used the “Roughriders” nickname for virtually every other mention of the team in that issue, so it’s reasonable to assume that Abbott chose “Broncos” in that scenario because it took up less space than “Roughriders”, but I think he also just thought it sounded cool. After just two months, Abbott assumed the role of Sports Editor for the Rider News—he must have been great at his job—and he gave himself his own weekly column, which he titled Bronc Bustin’. That column debuted on June 10, 1949, and the first time the paper referred to a Rider team as the Broncs in text was on June 24. Even here, the “Roughriders” nickname was used at least as much as, if not more than, “Broncs”.
Gradually, that changed. Bronc Bustin’ continued and Abbott left a legacy; the paper continued to use “Broncs” and “Roughriders” interchangeably after he left and then, in fall 1955, the paper stopped using the “Roughriders” nickname entirely.
This—at least, I think it’s this—has led all public-facing Rider sources on the internet to incorrectly claim that the “Broncs” nickname came to be in 1955. Perhaps that’s when the school made it official, but I can find no source that confirms this, and every modern Rider source talks about the nickname change in the passive voice. In any case, based on my research, 1955 is certainly not when the “Broncs” nickname originated, and I believe I’m the first person to pinpoint it to June 1949, at least on the internet.
Rider is represented by a costumed bronco mascot named AJ the Bronc.
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P.S. Rider’s women’s teams were also sometimes known as the “Riderettes” until the mid-1970s or so. They have exclusively shared the “Broncs” nickname with the men’s teams for a few decades.
Known as Trenton Business College from 1865-1896, Rider Business College from 1896-1920, and Rider College from 1920-1994
If you’re not familiar with Clair Bee, I don’t blame you. He won a whole ton of games for LIU in the 1930s and ‘40s, including the 1939 and 1941 NITs, but then his team got caught up in the 1951 point shaving scandal and he resigned in disgrace.