Name-a-Day Calendar, October 31: Wright State Raiders
Page 359 of 365
Chosen in: 1970
Chosen by: Student body contest
Wright State University was originally founded in 1964 as a branch campus of both Miami University (the one in Ohio) and Ohio State University. They became an independent institution in 1967 and, best I can tell, began playing intercollegiate athletics in the 1970-71 school year.
Before play started, a mascot was to be selected. In fall 1969, the fraternity Sigma Tau Epsilon began soliciting suggestions, of which they received about 160. They gave those suggestions to the student government, who appointed a campus-wide committee to whittle the list down to nine: Acheans, Chargers, Cobras, Knights, Raiders, Rams, Ramblers, Rangers, and Warriors.
From here, the selection process included two rounds of voting, each concurrent with a wider student body election. With late April 1970’s student senate elections came the first round, meant to narrow the list even further to just three finalists. However, for…some reason, four options advanced to the final round: Acheans, Cobras, Raiders, and Warriors. Student newspaper The Guardian was very pointedly angry that only 6% of the student body voted in this election.
The final round came during another student government election in early May, and the results were as follows: Raiders 141, Cobras 121, Warriors 102, Acheans 100, Rams 76, Knights 64. I have no idea what those last two were doing in there given they were evidently eliminated in the first round, but the point is moot: “Raiders” won and became the official nickname and mascot of Wright State’s future sports teams. We don’t know who originally suggested the nickname or why, but according to the university, the most popular theory is that the student body was inspired by the NFL’s Oakland Raiders, who were absurdly good at the time.
The first time I could find “Raiders” appearing in print to refer to a Wright State sports team was in the September 30, 1970, issue of The Guardian, detailing a men’s soccer victory over the same Miami they split from three years prior. The story refers to the team as the Raiders twice and includes a photo of the team in a huddle, captioned “The Raiders!”.
Despite the 1970 contest being advertised as a “mascot” contest, nobody immediately knew how to make a mascot out of the “Raiders” nickname, and nothing debuted until 1986. Since then, there’s been a costumed Viking, a costumed brown wolf, and the current costumed gray wolf named Rowdy Raider.
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