Name-a-Day Calendar, June 8: Ohio State Buckeyes

Page 214 of 365

Chosen in: 1950, officially

Chosen by: It had been a demonym for Ohio natives since 1788

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In 1788, Col. Ebenezer Sproat led a legal delegation to what was then the newly created Northwest Territory (but is now Ohio) to found the territory’s first permanent white settlement, Marietta. When his delegation arrived, the local Native Americans were impressed by his stature.

Wrote Samuel Prescott Hildreth, an early Ohio historian, in his Biographical and Historical Memoirs of the Early Pioneer Settlers of Ohio from 1852:

“Many of the savages visited the new settlement to see the Bostonians, as they were called, and to exchange their meat, skins, and peltry, for goods with the traders at Marietta and Fort Harmer. The tall, commanding person of Col. Sproat, soon attracted their attention, and they gave him the nickname of Hetuck, or Big Buckeye. From this, no doubt, originated the name of Buckeye, now applied to the natives of Ohio, as the phrase was familiar to all the early settlers of Marietta.”

A buckeye itself is a tree nut, so named because it visually resembles the eye of a buck. It’s not clear why the local Native Americans called Col. Sproat the name of a nut as a sign of apparent respect, but clearly it eventually grew into something much bigger than just Col. Sproat.

Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College was founded as the state’s land-grant university in 1870, but just eight years later, the school’s curriculum had expanded far beyond agriculture and mechanics, and the Ohio legislature gave it the name we all know today: The Ohio State University. The university began playing football in 1890 and men’s basketball in 1898, neither team initially going by any common nickname.

Around 1920, the university community and local press began the practice of expanding the “Buckeye” demonym for Ohio to be used as the nickname for Ohio State’s sports teams. According to The Lantern, Ohio State’s student newspaper, the student senate questioned “the effectiveness of having the Buckeye as the school mascot” in 1930 despite it not yet being an official mascot. At the time, the student senate decided the name was worth keeping “for awhile”, but the end of that while never came; the school made “Buckeyes” the official nickname in 1950.

The mascot itself, Brutus Buckeye, wouldn’t come until 1965, but is today one of the most widely recognized and beloved mascots in college sports.

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