Name-a-Day Calendar, September 15: UCLA Bruins

Page 313 of 365

Chosen in: 1926

Chosen by: Technically, Cal gave it to them and they have Montana to thank for even needing it in the first place

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The California State Normal School was founded in San José in 1862. That school would eventually evolve into San José State University, but before that, it established a southern branch campus in Los Angeles in 1881. The branch campus became independent of the California State Normal School in 1887 and successfully convinced the California Board of Regents to admit it to the University of California system in 1919.

At the time, the UC campus only had the one general campus in Berkeley, and that’d remain the case for the foreseeable future, as the new Los Angeles campus was officially named the Southern Branch of the University of California. Intercollegiate athletics began at this school immediately after it became part of the UC system. Their first teams were known as the Cubs: a play on the “Golden Bears” of Berkeley, as the Los Angeles campus was younger.

It wasn’t long before the Southern Branch didn’t want to be considered Berkeley’s little sibling; students abandoned “Cubs” for “Grizzlies” in 1924. That was all well and good…for about two years, at which time the Southern Branch sought to join the Pacific Coast Conference (the precursor to the soon-to-be-former Pac-12). At the time, the conference had a bylaw that prohibited multiple member teams from sharing the same nickname. The conference also included the University of Montana, whose teams had been known as the Grizzlies for about a decade at this point.

It seems unthinkable today that UCLA would have to kowtow to Montana, but a century ago, that’s exactly what happened. If the Southern Branch wanted to join the PCC, they’d need a new nickname. Students considered several options,¹ but in the end, they wanted their moniker to remain ursine.

Think of all the North American sports teams named after bears. Aside from “Cubs”, which the Southern Branch didn’t want, and “Grizzlies”, which they couldn’t use, the two most popular nicknames are “Bears” itself and “Bruins”. The Southern Branch couldn’t use “Bears” because it was in use by Berkeley (as “Golden Bears”), and they couldn’t use “Bruins” either because it was in use by…Berkeley? What? You don’t need two nicknames, Cal.

Berkeley agreed, and their student leaders met to decide which one they should give up so the Southern Branch could use it instead. “Golden Bears” was much more popular, so “Bruins”, they decided, would be the Southern Branch’s new athletics nickname, should they choose to accept it. They did accept it—immediately, in fact. The student newspaper, which had been known as California Grizzly, changed its title to The Daily Bruin on October 22, 1926, and the sports teams followed shortly after.

A little over two months later, on February 1, 1927, the Board of Regents renamed the Southern Branch the University of California at Los Angeles,² making this the first time the school name’s initials were “UCLA”. The UCLA Bruins have been a mainstay in the world of college sports ever since.

UCLA has two mascots, both costumed bears—one male, one female—named Joe and Josephine (Josie) Bruin.

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1. UCLA’s website says they considered “everything from Buccaneers to Gorillas”.

2. They still treated UCLA like a branch of UC Berkeley until 1951, when it was finally given its own chancellor. The “at” would be replaced with a comma in 1958.