After watching the improbable win by the Seattle Seahawks (National Football League team) last night, I was curious about the origins of some team names based on animal species. The Seahawks are named for the Osprey, although their logo isn’t quite an Osprey and their mascot is an African Augur Buzzard! The Cincinnati Bengals are named for the white tigers that were in the city’s zoo. And the Philadelphia Eagles were actually named for the Blue Eagle symbol used in President Roosevelt’s recovery plan during the Depression. Any other interesting stories for teams named after animals?
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I think the only sports team that is a true species and not just a shorthand(Seattle Seahawks, Philadelphia Eagles, AZ or STL Cardinals, etc.) is the Baltimore Orioles.
Bill Veeck sold the St Louis Browns to Clarence Miles and his company based in Baltimore. They changed the team name to reflect the bird species there.
If only the Philadelphia Vireos or the Nashville Warblers existed…
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When the NFL Cardinals moved to Phoenix, I wonder if anyone checked to make sure there were Northern Cardinals in Arizona (there are). Otherwise maybe they should’ve been the Arizona Pyrrhuloxias.
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We have Springboks and Proteas.
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Savannah Bananas.
Also, when Art Modell sold Cleveland up the river and moved the Browns to Baltimore, the team was renamed the Ravens.
Ps go birds
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James,
Thanks for starting this thread. There are scores of interesting origin stories around the world for teams named after animals!
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Don’t forget about plants! Stanford’s logo/mascot (but not name) is a redwood tree, and Ohio State University’s team is named after the buckeye tree (their mascot is a buckeye nut). And obviously the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team.
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Good point. And Diana mentioned the Proteas … a team within a sport named for an animal (cricket). ;-)
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The Richmond Flying Squirrels are a minor league baseball team.
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Amarillo, Texas has a minor league team called the Sod Poodles. Allegedly a local nickname for Black-tailed Prairie Dog. I don’t think we need to add that name to the species’ common names list.
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Genus, not species, but I think the University of California at Santa Cruz Banana Slugs is a fun name.
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Poisonous nuts!
There’s also the Oregon Ducks, Texas Longhorns, and I’m blanking on which team has the Razorbacks. Lots of USA college teams have an animal of some kind. Georgia Tech are the yellow jackets.
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Bend High School (Bend, Oregon, USA) has it’s sport teams named the “Lava Bears” after a local dwarf form of American Black Bear (Ursus americanus) that lived in the High Lava Plains of south-central Oregon.
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The big basketball rivalry in my home state is between the University of Louisville Cardinals (Northern Cardinal) and the University of Kentucky Wildcats (Eastern Bobcat, Lynx rufus ssp. rufus, here represented by Fuzzy the Wildcat).
The amusing part is that the two teams played each other only 12 times between 1913 and 1983. Despite this, many high schools’ Homecoming Week / Spirit Week themes include a College or U of L / U of K Day. Any time one of these themes was on the agenda for the week, I made a point of wearing my University of Maryland Terrapins dorm shirt. Go Terps!
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I would be remiss in not mentioning the Rocket City Trash Pandas named after the lovable raccoon.
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I’m in Michigan, sport team animals abound (Lions, Tigers, Wolverines, Eagles)
..also the Traverse City Pit Spitters baseball team
High schools got creative with Huron High River Rats, and Interlochen Fighting Blueberries
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Fighting Blueberries is awesome.
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Arkansas Razorbacks!
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I thought we were only choosing pro teams, but I can add college teams as well.
I race cross country and track for the LIU Sharks, which is boring since it’s a literal class of species. LIU Brooklyn’s former team was the Blackbirds, not after the Red-winged Blackbird but because the basketball players in black uniforms looked like blackbirds(specifically Euphagus running down the court in the 1950s.)
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Minnesota Timberwolves
University of Minnesota Gophers
University of Minnesota Duluth Bulldogs
University of Wisconsin Badgers
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