Name-a-Day Calendar, May 28: Northeastern Huskies
Page 203 of 365
Chosen in: 1927
Chosen by: A committee
It’s fun to stay at the YMCA! And it has been since the organization’s early days in the United States.
The first YMCA chapter in the country was founded in Boston in 1851. Our story begins 45 years later, when the Boston YMCA established an expanded curriculum of night classes on a variety of general education subjects; they called it the Evening Institute for Younger Men. This institute quickly expanded, to the point that it was incorporated as a four-year college—Northeastern College—in 1916 and became Northeastern University in 1921.
The men’s basketball team began play in 1920, originally without a mascot. This continued until early 1927, when the university formed a committee to select a mascot and they landed on the husky. Northeastern’s teams have been known as the Huskies ever since.
To christen the selection, university vice president Carl Ell acquired a Siberian Husky pup from sled dog musher Leonhard Seppala, named him King Husky, and paraded him throughout Boston. This original King Husky was a killer dog with a hero’s pedigree, and he’s since given way to 11 other live huskies and a costumed husky named Paws. Northeastern’s entire mascot history is fascinating.
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