Name-a-Day Calendar, June 14: Oral Roberts Golden Eagles

Page 220 of 365

Chosen in: 1993

Chosen by: A university-wide committee

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Oral Roberts University was founded in 1963 and its first sports teams came a couple years later. Students selected the nickname “Titans” because many of the school’s first students were from the Northeast and were fans of the NFL’s Titans of New York, the team known since 1963 as the Jets.

After 30 years running the university he named for himself, Oral Roberts stepped down as president, and the Board of Regents elected his son Richard to replace him. Richard Roberts believed a mascot associated with mythology to be nonsensical for an Evangelical Christian university like Oral Roberts, regardless of the circumstances behind its original selection. Richard put together a committee of students, faculty, and staff to select a new nickname. They picked “Golden Eagles” and the university announced the change on April 30, 1993.

The “Golden” came from the school’s gold/navy color scheme and the “Eagles” came from Isaiah 40:31:

“But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.”

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