Name-a-Day Calendar, June 10: Oklahoma State Cowboys/Cowgirls
Page 216 of 365
Chosen in: 1924; made official in 1957
Chosen by: The Oklahoma Times sports editor Charles Saulsberry, among others
In 1890, Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical College (Oklahoma A&M) was established as the land grant institution of what was then Oklahoma Territory.1 In the late 1890s, the student body selected orange and black as their school colors as an homage to Princeton. The university website says it was a “tribute to a popular faculty member whose father was a Princeton graduate”, which seems like a stretch, but hey, I wasn’t there.
When Oklahoma A&M began playing football in 1901, they also officially nicknamed their team the Tigers on account of their school colors and, by extension, Princeton. This proved unpopular, as many in the community wanted their own distinct identity. Naturally, that contingent called Oklahoma A&M’s teams the Aggies—the nickname used by pretty much every ag school in the country at this point in time.
This nickname lacked a mascot, which eventually frustrated many Oklahoma A&M students. In 1923, a group of students attended Stillwater’s Armistice Day parade, which was headed by United States deputy marshal Frank Eaton. The students thought he looked cool and figured his likeness would be a fitting mascot for Oklahoma A&M given the Old West, land rush roots of both the school and the state. Eaton agreed, the students drew him as a cartoon,2 and the famous Pistol Pete was born.
Eaton himself was local to the area, residing in nearby Perkins for most of his adult life. He was also an Old West veteran with a life story that sounds too absurd to be true, leading many to believe much of it is, in fact, fiction.3 He began to attend Oklahoma A&M sporting events soon after his likeness became the school’s unofficial mascot, and it wasn’t long before the “Tigers” nickname was completely abandoned and replaced with “Cowboys”.
The man most often credited with popularizing “Cowboys” as an unofficial nickname is Charles Saulsberry, then the sports editor for The Oklahoma Times,4 though many others quickly followed suit. Within a year, “Aggies” and “Cowboys” were used more or less interchangeably.
Oklahoma A&M gained university status in 1957, at which point it was renamed the Oklahoma State University of Agriculture and Applied Sciences (though “Agriculture and Applied Sciences” was rarely used and would be officially removed from the title in 1980). Concurrent with the school name change, Oklahoma State moved away from the “Aggies” branding and went all in on “Cowboys”.
Frank Eaton died the next year, leading Oklahoma State to memorialize him by finally officializing his mascot status and crafting a costume to be worn by students replacing the real deal.
When Oklahoma State began intercollegiate women’s athletics in the 1970s as a response to Title IX, those teams were naturally dubbed the Cowgirls.
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Oklahoma Territory would combine with Indian Territory and be admitted to the Union as the 46th state in 1907.
This is admittedly conjecture. I have no idea who actually drew the original Pistol Pete and it doesn’t look like the university does either.
Look it up; trust me.
This newspaper ceased publication in 1984.