Name-a-Day Calendar, June 1: Northern Iowa Panthers
Page 207 of 365
Chosen in: 1931
Chosen by: Football center Burl Berry via a schoolwide contest
The Iowa State Normal School was established in 18761 and began playing football in 1895 and men’s basketball in 1898. Originally, the school’s sports teams were unofficially known by many nicknames related to education, including the Pedagogues, Teachers, and Tutors.
These teams usually suffered from a resource and personnel deficit relative to other Iowa schools, as teachers colleges were attended by far more women than men. This wasn’t the case forever, though, as by the late 1920s, the school was beginning to take sports more seriously. Naturally, this meant they needed a more imposing nickname, so they started a schoolwide contest to select one. They announced it in the September 8, 1931, edition of the College Eye student newspaper thusly:
“Who wants to be called Tutors, Pedagogues, and Teachers all the time? Every leading school in the country has some name by which they are known in the realm of sport. Iowa is known as the Hawkeyes, Minnesota as Gophers,2 Chicago as Maroons, and so forth. Why not give Iowa State Teachers College a name which signifies something characteristic about the school besides the fact that it is a teachers college?”
Ten days later, the paper announced that the contest would be judged by men’s physical education department head Paul Bender, professor of journalism George Holmes, Student Council president Robert Burley, and the paper’s own sports editor (unnamed). Only the winner’s nickname would be assigned to the school’s sports teams, but the top three nicknames would receive a prize: the winner would get a leather briefcase from a local drug store, the runner-up would get an alarm clock from a local jewelry store, and the third-place finisher would get…a season football ticket. I hope I take home the bronze!
Alas, I was still 66 years from mortal existence, so I did not win a season pass to 1931 Iowa State Teachers College Purple Panthers football. That winning nickname was submitted by Burl Berry, the center on said football team, I guess making it a good thing he didn’t win third place.3 I wonder if the briefcase still exists somewhere.
The College Eye noted why the panel selected “Purple Panthers”:
“The sinuous grace and bestial ferocity of the panther make him one of the most savage and respected of the animals. He never leaps upon his prey without first sizing up the situation. And once he does strike he seldom misses.”
The “Purple” part of the nickname was colloquially discarded almost immediately. The school’s teams became known as the Panthers, and once it changed its name to the University of Northern Iowa in 1967, we got the Northern Iowa Panthers.
The Northern Iowa library has more information on this story and a broader history of the school’s panther mascots.
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Became Iowa State Teachers College in 1909, the State College of Iowa in 1961, and the University of Northern Iowa in 1967
This was before the Gophers became Golden.
The football ticket went to Kenneth Erwin, with Keith Stapley taking second and winning the alarm clock.
You could probably sell that football season ticket for at least 5 alarm clocks lol