Name-a-Day Calendar, July 8: Rutgers Scarlet Knights

Page 244 of 365

Chosen in: 1955

Chosen by: A schoolwide vote

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Rutgers University is one of just nine colleges in the United States that has operated since before the American Revolution, as it was originally founded as Queen’s College in 1766. In 1825, the school was renamed Rutgers College¹ after Colonel Henry Rutgers, who donated several thousand dollars to essentially save the school from going bankrupt, as it had been in dire economic straits since the War of 1812.

In 1869, Rutgers defeated Princeton 6-4 in the first intercollegiate football game ever played, marking the beginning of mainstream intercollegiate athletics at the school. Rutgers’ first teams were known as the Queensmen on account of the school’s former name, though they were also sometimes called by their school color: the Scarlet.

On November 7, 1925, Rutgers played a football game at Lafayette in which both schools introduced a new mascot. Lafayette had just nicknamed their teams the Leopards the previous year, so they introduced a mascot to accompany that moniker. Rutgers introduced a rooster they named Chanticleer after the rooster protagonist of “The Nun’s Priest Tale” in The Canterbury Tales. I’ll leave it to the reader to decide which mascot was cooler, but Lafayette won the game 34-0. Rutgers’ teams were sometimes called the Chanticleers while this mascot represented the school, but “Scarlet” became the primary nickname during this time.

A rooster is, of course, an adult male chicken. Rutgers had a chicken as their mascot, and other schools made fun of them for it a lot. After about 30 years, they decided enough was enough. A petition in March 1955 to retire the rooster mascot garnered 450 signatures, including the entire Varsity “R” club, which represented all of Rutgers’ varsity teams.

Over the next two months, students submitted various nickname and mascot suggestions to Student Council. Some suggestions were occasionally highlighted in The Targum student newspaper. My favorite came in the May 5 issue:

“Yahoo: ‘A yahoo would be a good representative and would also give considerable support to our football team.’ (Ed. note: What is it?)”

That issue also introduced a certain other candidate:

“Scarlet Knights: ‘This would symbolize bravery, gallantry, chivalry and strength.’”

The paper unfortunately did not mention who submitted any of the nickname suggestions.

Student Council sent seven nicknames to a vote at Rutgers’ convocation on May 10, 1955. Five of them were suggestions from various students: Flying Dutchmen, Raritangs, Redmen, Red Lions, and Scarlet Knights. Two of them were nicknames from the school’s present (Scarlet) or past (Queensmen). In a ranked choice vote in which students were asked to select their first, second, and third choices among the seven suggestions, the first round of results were as follows: Scarlet Knights 405, Queensmen 254, Red Lions 160, Scarlet 139, Raritangs 105, Redmen 90, Flying Dutchmen 18. “Scarlet Knights” retained the lead after accounting for the ranked choice calculations, making it the official nickname and mascot of Rutgers athletics, effective immediately.

Rutgers is currently represented by a costumed knight named Sir Henry.

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1. Became Rutgers University in 1924 and was designated Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, in 1945