Post by Old Badger on Jan 13, 2020 11:25:20 GMT -5
Both Clemson and LSU are named the Tigers, but they got there from decidedly different starting points. Tigers is second only to Eagles as a team name for colleges at all levels, with more than 40, but in Div. I-A there are only five (the others are Missouri, Memphis, and Auburn). The story of how CU and LSU got their names was reported over the weekend in the Washington Post, and it's more interesting than you'd think.
Well, perhaps not for Clemson: "Reigning national champion Clemson took on the mascot in 1896, borrowing it from Princeton, a national power at the time. The Princeton players wore orange and black stripes on their socks to contrast with rivals Harvard, which wore crimson, and Yale, which wore blue. Apparently seeking to match Princeton’s success, Clemson adopted the moniker, too, at the suggestion of a student whom historians know only as 'Thompson,' according to research by the school’s historian, Paul Anderson." This kind of borrowing is not unique; one Illinois fight song begins, "Oh, Princeton has her Tiger, Wisconsin her Varsity..." And the Michigan flying wing helmet was taken directly from Princeton's design when Fielding Yost left the latter for the former.
More interesting is the LSU story: "When 11 states seceded from the Union in 1860 and 1861, local governments organized volunteer companies of men to march north and join Gen. Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. One such company consisted of a few hundred Irish and German immigrants who worked on the New Orleans docks. They processed and shipped cotton that came down from plantations along the Mississippi River, said Patrick Lewis, the scholar in residence at Filson Historical Society in Louisville. When the shipments dried up with war on the horizon, the men joined the Confederate ranks and journeyed north. They wore Zouave uniforms, in the style of the French army in Africa, to distinguish themselves at camp in Virginia, where they drank, swore and boasted that they fight like tigers in battle. The name stuck, and others from Louisiana were referred to as Tigers as well...The South’s economic recovery from the Civil War coincided with the expansion of the American university system and the arrival of football on college campuses. When teams formed, they often looked to their local histories for fearsome nicknames. More than a few chose mascots that commemorated their Civil War past: the Mississippi Rebels, the North Carolina Tar Heels, the Kansas Jayhawks, the Missouri Tigers."
Yes, it's a Civil War reference. Ironically, the Missouri Tigers name comes from the opposite side: "In Columbia, Mo., a company of Union supporters assigned to guard the local courthouse called themselves Tigers, too. But the guards never saw battle." Even Kansas Jayhawks has a Civil War history: "Abolitionists in Kansas were known to raid plantations in neighboring Missouri and free enslaved people by spiriting them back across the border. They called themselves Jayhawks or Jayhawkers, although the term also had other uses."
Tigers vs. Tigers. Deceptively simple. Full story: www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2020/01/10/tiger-mascot-lsu-clemson/.
Well, perhaps not for Clemson: "Reigning national champion Clemson took on the mascot in 1896, borrowing it from Princeton, a national power at the time. The Princeton players wore orange and black stripes on their socks to contrast with rivals Harvard, which wore crimson, and Yale, which wore blue. Apparently seeking to match Princeton’s success, Clemson adopted the moniker, too, at the suggestion of a student whom historians know only as 'Thompson,' according to research by the school’s historian, Paul Anderson." This kind of borrowing is not unique; one Illinois fight song begins, "Oh, Princeton has her Tiger, Wisconsin her Varsity..." And the Michigan flying wing helmet was taken directly from Princeton's design when Fielding Yost left the latter for the former.
More interesting is the LSU story: "When 11 states seceded from the Union in 1860 and 1861, local governments organized volunteer companies of men to march north and join Gen. Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. One such company consisted of a few hundred Irish and German immigrants who worked on the New Orleans docks. They processed and shipped cotton that came down from plantations along the Mississippi River, said Patrick Lewis, the scholar in residence at Filson Historical Society in Louisville. When the shipments dried up with war on the horizon, the men joined the Confederate ranks and journeyed north. They wore Zouave uniforms, in the style of the French army in Africa, to distinguish themselves at camp in Virginia, where they drank, swore and boasted that they fight like tigers in battle. The name stuck, and others from Louisiana were referred to as Tigers as well...The South’s economic recovery from the Civil War coincided with the expansion of the American university system and the arrival of football on college campuses. When teams formed, they often looked to their local histories for fearsome nicknames. More than a few chose mascots that commemorated their Civil War past: the Mississippi Rebels, the North Carolina Tar Heels, the Kansas Jayhawks, the Missouri Tigers."
Yes, it's a Civil War reference. Ironically, the Missouri Tigers name comes from the opposite side: "In Columbia, Mo., a company of Union supporters assigned to guard the local courthouse called themselves Tigers, too. But the guards never saw battle." Even Kansas Jayhawks has a Civil War history: "Abolitionists in Kansas were known to raid plantations in neighboring Missouri and free enslaved people by spiriting them back across the border. They called themselves Jayhawks or Jayhawkers, although the term also had other uses."
Tigers vs. Tigers. Deceptively simple. Full story: www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2020/01/10/tiger-mascot-lsu-clemson/.