Name-a-Day Calendar, May 7: Murray State Racers

Page 182 of 365

Chosen in: The late 1950s

Chosen by: Local newspaper editors

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Murray State Normal School was established in 1922¹ and began intercollegiate athletic competition in 1924. Unlike many teachers colleges, their first athletic nickname had nothing to do with education: they were the Thoroughbreds on account of Kentucky’s rich history of horse racing.

“Thoroughbreds” is a bit of a mouthful and, more importantly for our purposes, a long word to try to fit on a newspaper headline. Local sportswriters and newspaper editors usually got around this by shortening it to “T-Breds” or “‘Breds” (like with the NBA’s Minnesota Timberwolves), but some instead just used a different word entirely: “Racers”. According to the university, the “Racers” nickname gradually gained popularity until, by the late 1950s, the school itself started using it for almost all of their teams.

I say “almost all” because baseball, stubborn as it ever was, refused to ride the wave for several decades after the fact. It wasn’t until 2014 that Murray State’s baseball team finally stopped calling themselves the Thoroughbreds and started calling themselves the Racers.

Since 1976, Murray State has employed a thoroughbred horse² named Racer One to run a victory lap around the field every time the football team scores a touchdown.

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1. Became Murray State Normal School and Teachers College in 1926, Murray State Teachers College in 1930, Murray State College in 1948, and Murray State University in 1966

2. Usually a different horse each year