Yahoo Sports: My wife ranks the Big Ten nicknames!

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I personally think the best mascots in the conference are Goldy, Testudo, and yes, that badger. All 3 score high points for originality, cuteness, and actually having a mascot (Michigan and Indiana don't).

Sparty is a nice costume but is too generic as a nickname. Boilermakers and Cornhuskers are unique but have creepy mascots. Nittany Lions and Hawkeyes are just derivations of the common names "Cougars" and "Hawks". The Nittany Lion costume would look bad on the sidelines of a high school. Buckeyes is unique, but a little weird and inanimate vs. the animal mascots.

Wolverines are tough and original, but there is no wolverine mascot at Michigan, and the de facto mascot/nickname is "Blue" if you visit the stadium.

Knights, Wildcats, Illini - nope.
 

fmlizard said:
I personally think the best mascots in the conference are Goldy, Testudo, and yes, that badger. All 3 score high points for originality, cuteness, and actually having a mascot (Michigan and Indiana don't).

Sparty is a nice costume but is too generic as a nickname. Boilermakers and Cornhuskers are unique but have creepy mascots. Nittany Lions and Hawkeyes are just derivations of the common names "Cougars" and "Hawks". The Nittany Lion costume would look bad on the sidelines of a high school. Buckeyes is unique, but a little weird and inanimate vs. the animal mascots.

Wolverines are tough and original, but there is no wolverine mascot at Michigan, and the de facto mascot/nickname is "Blue" if you visit the stadium.

Knights, Wildcats, Illini - nope.
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There are also no wolverines in the state of Michigan.
 





Peak offseason content. Here’s how I'd rank them

  1. Golden Gophers. Gophers is such a unique nickname so it stands out, plus it let’s us have Goldy who is an amazing mascot. Plus, adding gold to the name was a great move. I love that they became the “Golden” Gophers during the period in which they were winning the national titles (in football and hockey, too). Really solidifies the name.
  2. Scarlet Knights. Knights are cool and having their color be scarlet gives a sort of royalty to the name. They should put a red knight logo on their helmet rather than that R, honestly.
  3. Wolverines. The name sounds ferocious. Makes you think of either a dangerous wild animal or the X-Men character with indestructible claws.
  4. Spartans. Warriors with cool helmets who fight to the bitter end. Great name.
  5. Wildcats. Common name, yeah, but it’s used often because it works.
  6. Fighting Illini. Unique nickname and the “fighting” makes it aggressive.
  7. Buckeyes. If you had to name your team after a nut, Buckeye isn’t a bad choice. Rolls of the tongue well.
  8. Hawkeyes. I don’t know why they didn’t just call themselves the Hawks. Bias is showing here because it’s an alright name, but, y’know, Iowa.
  9. Cornhuskers. I appreciate the name paying homage to the state’s agriculture industry, but a name based on corn isn’t going to earn enough points to get higher.
  10. Nittany Lions. So the name is based on nearby Mount Nittany, but I never quite liked it. If they were the Mountain Lions I’d be more on board.
  11. Boilermakers. I think the train logo is cool and all but I don’t automatically think of trains when I hear the word boiling, I’m more likely to think of a pot on my oven with water. I think Locomotives would have been better.
  12. Badgers. Again, bias coming through. But out of all the animals on the list, Badgers is the one I’d least like to be named after. That is if you don’t count the next one.
  13. Terrapins. Snapping turtles? Maybe. But Terrapins? Doesn’t sound intimidating
  14. I like the way Hoosier sounds, but I think it would work better more as a loose secondary nickname than the primary mascot name for a team.
 






nitramnaed said:
Well at least for 200 years
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Listen, I watched one documentary about this years ago, so I'm an expert :). To the best of my understanding, even those ones were strange (likely brought in by accident). They were never commercially trapped in Michigan, there isn't a fossil record of them there and the quote when they found one recently was "this is like finding a polar bear in Michigan".
 



Bob_Loblaw said:
Listen, I watched one documentary about this years ago, so I'm an expert :). To the best of my understanding, even those ones were strange (likely brought in by accident). They were never commercially trapped in Michigan, there isn't a fossil record of them there and the quote when they found one recently was "this is like finding a polar bear in Michigan".
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Found this on a random site:
It has been generally accepted that Michigan was nicknamed "The Wolverine State" for the abundance of wolverines that once roamed the peninsula. However, according to the Michigan Historical Center, wolverines were very rare in Michigan if they were present at all. It's not clear how this nickname originated, but there are two theories.

Some think the nickname was originated by Ohioans in 1835 during a dispute over an Ohio/Michigan boundary called the "Toledo Strip." This dispute became known as the Toledo War. Though Michigan and Ohio both sent troops to the area, no shots were ever fired. It's said that Ohioans, at that time, referred to Michiganians as "...as vicious and bloodthirsty as wolverines."

Another theory is proposed that Native Americans compared the way that settlers were taking land, in the 1830s, to the way the excessively greedy wolverine went after its food.
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The State of Michigan - An Introduction to the Great Lakes State from NETSTATE.COM

An introduction to Michigan that includes information about the state capitol, how the state got its name, the state's nicknames, how the state citizens are addressed, and the state quarter.
www.netstate.com www.netstate.com
 


Bob_Loblaw said:
Listen, I watched one documentary about this years ago, so I'm an expert :). To the best of my understanding, even those ones were strange (likely brought in by accident). They were never commercially trapped in Michigan, there isn't a fossil record of them there and the quote when they found one recently was "this is like finding a polar bear in Michigan".
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I found a picture of Bob Loblow:
The_Professor_(Gilligan's_Island).jpg
 

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