Name-a-Day Calendar, March 5: Illinois State Redbirds
Page 119 of 365
Chosen in: 1934-ish
Chosen by: Daily Pantagraph sports editor Fred Young
What is now Illinois State University was founded as a normal school in 1857 and began playing intercollegiate sports before the turn of the 20th century (football in 1887, men’s basketball in 1898). Owing to their status as a teachers college, these teams were initially called the Fighting Teachers.
They used this nickname for over a quarter century until someone had the idea to change it. That someone was incoming athletic director Clifford “Pop” Horton, who in 1923 assumed that role along with that of head coach for football, men’s basketball, and baseball. He didn’t like the Fighting Teachers nickname and the school colors were red and white, so he suggested “Cardinals” as a replacement. He worked with sports editor Fred Young of the Daily Pantagraph local newspaper1 to make the switch a reality.
Unfortunately, it didn’t take long for readers to get confused and send Young a bunch of letters asking when MLB’s St. Louis Cardinals started playing basketball.2 Of course, the NFL’s Cardinals had also recently moved to Chicago…it was just confusing all around. After “a very short period of time”,3 Young took it upon himself to rename Illinois State’s teams the Red Birds to avoid confusion. After about a decade, “Red Birds” became one word: “Redbirds”. If we assume “Cardinals” only lasted a year before getting the kibosh, that’d date “Red Birds” to 1924 and “Redbirds” to about 1934.
Illinois State’s mascot is Reggie Redbird, named after Reggie Jackson for some reason (Jackson has no affiliation with the university or the state of Illinois; he attended Arizona State). He has his own entry in the staff directory!
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This paper still exists; today it’s just known as The Pantagraph.
This is total conjecture but also this definitely happened.
This is how long Horton claimed the teams were known as the Cardinals in a mid-1970s account published by the university.