Name-a-Day Calendar, May 9: NC State Wolfpack

Page 184 of 365

Chosen in: 1921

Chosen by: An anonymous alumnus

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The school currently known as North Carolina State University was established in 1887 as the North Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts. When they began playing football just five years later, their teams had no official nickname. For the first three decades of their athletic existence, the school’s teams were unofficially dubbed the Aggies, the Farmers, and sometimes the Techs, all of which had their roots in the education the young school provided.

Unfortunately, these monikers—especially the first two—were often used pejoratively by what the university today calls “classist rivals”,¹ and by World War I, the community had had enough. After the war, in February 1921, an anonymous alum who had since relocated to New York City wrote a letter to the editor of the Alumni News lamenting the lack of a true mascot for NC State. The letter, in its entirety, read:

“It has always appeared to me that those teams which had traditional symbols and nicknames have the greatest morale and spirit among the colleges. Take, for instance, the Yale ‘Bulldog’, or the Princeton ‘Tiger’, and the Carolina ‘Tarheels’, with many others. These names add a picturesque touch to those colleges which I have always thought reacted favorably on the playing of the team, not to speak of the added drawing power of something like the Gold Tornado from Georgia Tech. Pride is taken in these names and teams traditionally try to live up to them. Now, my suggestion is that State teams take up the symbol of the Wolves. Here is a snappy, aggressive name which would have a most favorable effect on the College. To have the State team known as the Wolf Pack would add tremendously in publicity.”²

This letter has never been found, leading some to believe the Alumni News staff lied about its origin.³ The school also never took any official action to make the wolf the official mascot of NC State, but the timing of the nickname’s first appearance in print was too soon after this letter to be a coincidence. In September 1921, a sportswriter in The Fayetteville Observer penned that “Coach Hartsell will unleash the Wolfpack in the opening game of the grid season”. Other papers followed and that was that.

At least, you’d think that was that. The “Wolfpack” nickname only took hold for the football team; the men’s basketball team at the time was known as the Red Terrors, and that continued on at least an unofficial basis until after World War II.

The postwar period was a turning point for NC State’s athletic identity. John Harrelson was the dean of administration when he left to serve in the war. When he got back, he was Col. John Harrelson and the school promoted him to chancellor. And one of the first things he wanted to change at the school he now governed was the football team’s nickname: “Wolfpack” reminded him too much of the battle tactics employed by the German navy’s submarines, and he didn’t want his football team to be associated with the enemy.

In 1946, Col. Harrelson offered six 1947 season football tickets to any student who could come up with a better nickname. He then gathered the suggestions and sent them back to the student body for a vote, allowing “Wolfpack” to be included on the ballot in case his student body wanted to keep the nickname. And that’s exactly what happened: in a vote consisting of several decidedly unfierce nicknames,⁴ “Wolfpack” won in a landslide. Col. Harrelson acquiesced to these results with the caveat that, if they were gonna be the Wolfpack, they were gonna go all in on it; no more Red Terrors. The school followed suit and that was that.

NC State has had a fairly rich history of live mascots. Their current one is a Tamaskan named Tuffy III.

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1. I wonder whom they could possibly be talking about.

2. It’s pretty funny that the original suggestion was for “Wolf Pack” to be split into two words considering that the university has long since shortened it to the one-world “Wolfpack” and recently picked fights with Nevada and Loyola New Orleans for spelling it as one word instead of two.

3. You really think someone would do that? Just go on the student newspaper and tell lies?

4. Auctioneers, Calumets, Cardinals, Cultivators, Hornets, North Staters, Pine-Rooters