So Your Mascot is a Bulldog - How Original!
by KevinHog on Sep 17, 2009 2:59 PM CDT
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Since Georgia fans are airing out their unoriginal and tired comments about Bobby Petrino, I thought it only fair that we pull out an unoriginal observation that Georgia fans have heard time and time again, I am sure. Could you not have come up with a more original mascot than a bulldog? Say what you will about Arkansas, at least we were creative enough to come up with a Razorback for our mascot, which no other college team has. Just how many other bulldogs are there out there? Take a look at this long list.
1.) Adrian College
2.) Alabama A&M University
3.) Barton College
4.) Bryant University
5.) Butler University
6.) Fresno State
7.) The Citadel - yikes, a bad memory here!
8.) College of San Mateo
9.) Concordia University
10.) Dean College
11.) DeSales University
12.) Drake University
13.) Ferris State University - students known for taking days off!
14.) Gardner-Webb University
15.) Georgetown
16.) Gonzaga
17.) James Madison
18.) Louisiana Tech
19.) University of Minnesota Duluth
20.) University of Montana Western
21.) Mississippi State - duplicated by another SEC team for Pete's sake!
22.) North Carolina A&T State University
23.) University of North Carolina at Asheville
24.) University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez
25.) University of Redlands
26.) Samford University
27.) South Carolina State University
28.) South Suburban College - this has to be located in a strip mall.
29.) Southwestern Oklahoma State University
30.) Texas Lutheran University
31.) Truman State University
32.) Western Illinois University - almost another bad memory!
33.) Wilberforce University
34.) Wingate University
35.) Yale
36.) Oh, yeah, the University of Georgia
About 100 years ago Arkansas wisely changed its mascot from a cardinal (plenty of those too) to something more fitting of its fierce, bluecollar background and came up with a Razorback, which no other NCAA school has. I think Georgia should try to separate itself from the likes of Wilberforce and South Suburban and come up with a mascot more original and fitting to Georgia. They could be the Peaches! Or they could honor Atlanta and call themselves the Sprawls. They could take back the slur, and call themselves proudly the University of Georgia Crackers. Since Georgia doesn't grow really all that many peaches, they could go with the peanut instead and keep a dog around if they must. If they can get copyright permission from the Charles Schultz estate, a beagle instead of a bulldog! If you have any suggestions to help Georgia out, please include them in the comment section.
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Fair point
I have a question, though, and it’s not a rhetorical or snarky one.
How many of those teams were called the Bulldogs before Georgia was?
Once again, that’s not a challenge to your point; I honestly don’t know the answer. Yale certainly was called the Bulldogs before Georgia was, since the longstanding ties between the universities in New Haven and in Athens probably had a role to play in the Red and Black’s selection of that nickname.
I ask that because, when The Atlanta Journal‘s Morgan Blake wrote his famous column on November 3, 1920, his point was that the mascot Georgia was then using (“Wildcats”) was too common. He suggested “Bulldogs” as an alternative, in part, because it didn’t appear to him that any other Southern teams were using that particular nickname at the time. I’d be curious to know, then, how many of the other 35 teams who go by “Bulldogs” adopted that nickname after Georgia did.
In any case, it’s a fair point, even if Uga’s appearances on the cover of Sports Illustrated, in “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil,” at the 1982 Heisman Trophy presentation, and in weekly television shots coming in from or going out to commercial probably means that no Bulldogs are more famous than the ones in the Classic City.
We’ll see y’all Saturday night!
Go 'Dawgs!
So your mascot is a bulldog
Imitation being the sincerest form of flattery, the GA Bulldogs certainly seem to be widely admired. In all these years the ’Hogs have done nothing worthy of imitation???
Guess I like the bulldog just fine.
It is a dime a dozen mascot, guys.
Seriously, I wouldn’t ever expect Georgia to change its mascot. UGA is too well known. But I would rather have a mascot that it so unique no one would think of imitating it. I don’t see Georgia following Yale and then other schools following Georgia as flattery. I see it is as they couldn’t come up with a better idea! There are no other Volunteers, no other Gators, no other Gamecocks, no other Crimson Tide out there. Not because they weren’t worth imitiating, but because those teams staked out something truly original and beyond copying. With UGA, Georgia is first amongst bulldogs, I admit. But still, just a bulldog.
Why is uniqueness necessarily a virtue in football?
If everyone else is doing one thing and you’re doing another, you may be a bold innovator, but you also may be doing it wrong. Paul Johnson runs a unique offense. Paul Johnson’s team got run slap out of the building earlier this evening. Maybe there’s a reason why triple-option football faded away at programs with legitimate Division I-A talent. Different isn’t necessarily better.
By the way, Jacksonville State also fields a team called the Gamecocks.
“Volunteers” is a name from Tennessee military history. “Gators” is a reference to the fact that the Florida Everglades contain many alligators. “Crimson Tide” denotes a particularly bloody and muddy game. “Bulldogs” is an homage to Yale University, which produced a couple of early University of Georgia presidents, which provided the plans for one of the first buildings on the University of Georgia campus (Old College used the blueprints for Connecticut Hall), and which sent its football team to Athens for the dedicatory game in Sanford Stadium.
The fact that other teams use the same mascot doesn’t mean it isn’t as integrally and intimately related to University of Georgia history as the other names you cited . . . and, since most folks can name, at most, one other live bulldog mascot of another team with the same nickname (Mississippi State’s hopelessly lame Bully), I tend to think we have the market fairly well cornered on the brand name, no matter how many other folks may use the nickname.
Uga is “just a bulldog”? Well, yeah, sure . . . and, by the same token, a Razorback is just a pig. That’s like saying LSU’s Mike is “just a tiger” because Auburn, Clemson, Missouri, Princeton, etc., all call themselves the Tigers, too. Well, so what? He’s still a live man-eater in a cage on the sideline. The fact that other folks use the same name doesn’t make it one whit less impressive. In the meantime, when Tusk makes the cover of Sports Illustrated as the country’s No. 1 mascot, or wears a tuxedo to a Heisman Trophy presentation, or plays a bit part in a major motion picture, call me, and I’ll give him credit for becoming a star on the level that Uga has occupied for years.
Go 'Dawgs!
by T Kyle King on Sep 17, 2009 10:59 PM CDT up reply actions
For what it's worth . . .
. . . there’s at least one Auburn player who doesn’t think Uga is just a bulldog:
Go 'Dawgs!
by T Kyle King on Sep 17, 2009 11:01 PM CDT up reply actions
This thread started as good-natured jabbing, even though the Bobby Petrino vitriol from the Atlanta area is both ridiculous and pathetic. I guess Georgia fans are just sensitive about their mascot. Lighten up, guys. Besides, a bulldog is “just a bulldog” (that’s why it’s called a “bulldog”, natch), but a Razorback isn’t “just a pig”. Saying a Razorback is “just a pig” is like saying a bulldog is “just a housepet”. Surely you see the difference.
Technically...
Western Illinois is the “Leathernecks”. They just use an image of a bulldog, for some reason. The Wikipedia entry for Georgia indicated that they chose the bulldog because its first university president was from Yale, so that explains that. It seems that, at the very least, Yale and Butler were both the Bulldogs before Georgia, so it’s not exactly clear who’s imitating who.
One final point:
At least one other sports team has used “Razorbacks” as a mascot, although they later dropped the nickname. Is “many other teams share our nickname” really a worse admission to have to make than “Australian basketball teams used our nickname and then ditched it”?
Go 'Dawgs!
I love Uga
Kyle, you never cease to crack me up! Keep up the great work.
You Wanna Talk About Australia?
True, the crappy West Sydney basketball team changed their team for one season, then shut their doors – basketball is about as popular in Australia as cricket in America – and with the quality to match. They don’t even have a freakin team in the largest city here anymore.
And, you can add two Bulldogs teams from Australia to that list of your Bulldog clan. The Western (formerly Footscray) Bulldogs of the Australian Football League (you may remember that sport from the early ESPN days) and the genius of “The Bulldogs” in the National Rugby League from the Sydney outer suburbs. Both teams have knuckle-dragging fans and crappy logos.
K State anyone?
This just sucks
by Double D Down Under on Sep 19, 2009 4:20 PM CDT up reply actions
Just for the record...
… San Francisco State University also calls its teams the Gators.
And I agree with Kyle that uniqueness isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be. Submitted for your review are the following:
The University of California at Santa Cruz – the Fighting Banana Slugs (With a mascot named Sammy the Slug.)
St. Louis University – the Billikens
Texas A&M at Kingsville – the Javelinas (the Hogs might not be as unique as they think!)
Finally, my personal favorite, Evergreen State College – the Geoducks (pronounced “gooey-ducks”)
My final word on this
is that the volume of response here shows what a sensitive topic this is for Georgia fans, so deep down there must be some mascot envy lurking there amongst Georgians that they didn’t come up with something more unique than the ubiquitous bulldog. A mascot complex! Tigers probably have it too. Not known to exist amongst Razorback fans! haha.
I don't know how sensitve the "Bulldog" thing is...
… but rule #1 when among Georgia fans is that you don’t insult Uga (the dog)… ever.
by vineyarddawg on Sep 18, 2009 12:48 PM CDT up reply actions
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