Name-a-Day Calendar, March 13: Jacksonville Dolphins
Page 126 of 365
Chosen in: 1947, kind of
Chosen by: Student body vote
What is now Jacksonville University was a junior college from its foundation in 1934 until its expansion to four-year status in 1958. They had just put together a men’s basketball team in 1947 and they needed a nickname for them, so they held a contest to select one.
Not all nicknames submitted to the contest played off the school’s green primary color — “Buccaneers” and “Juggernauts”, for example — but many of them did, including “Green Dragons”, “Green Raiders”, and eventual winner “Green Dolphins”. This was eventually shortened to “Dolphins”, giving Florida its first major sports team with that name, as the Miami Dolphins would not be established until 1965.
We don’t know who submitted “Green Dolphins” to the contest, but we do know why: dolphins are native to Jacksonville! Urban dolphins can often be found in the St. Johns River that splits Jacksonville in half and flows alongside the campus of Jacksonville University.
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