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Bearcats? Why are they called Bearcats?

Matt Gutridge's picture
September 26, 2014 at 6:33am
13 Comments

Byaaaahhh informed me that Cincinnati was not called the Bearcats when they defeated Ohio State in 1897. Me being me, I had to find out the story behind the nickname.

Per Wikipedia:

Teddy Baehr, the inspiration for Cincinnati's nickname.

Teddy Baehr, the inspiration for Cincinnati's nickname.

The Bearcat became the UC mascot on October 31, 1914 in a football game against the UK Wildcats. The key players in the birth of the Bearcat were a star UC player named Baehr, a creative cheerleader, and a talented cartoonist. During the second half of that hard-fought football game, UC cheerleader Norman "Pat" Lyon, building on the efforts of fullback Leonard K. "Teddy" Baehr, created the chant: "They may be Wildcats, but we have a Baehr-cat on our side."

 

The crowd took up the cry: "Come on, Baehr-cat!" Cincinnati prevailed, 14–7, and the victory was memorialized in a cartoon published on the front page of the student newspaper, the weekly University News, on November 3. The cartoon, by John "Paddy" Reece, depicted a bedraggled Kentucky Wildcat being chased by a creature labeled “Cincinnati Bear Cat".

The name stuck, but not immediately. Following Teddy Baehr's graduation in 1916, the name dropped out of use, at least in print, for a few years. On November 15, 1919, Cincinnati played at Tennessee.Cincinnati Enquirer writer Jack Ryder's dispatch on the game was the first time that the major media called UC's teams "Bearcats." From then on, the university's teams were regularly called Bearcats.

The Bearcat mascot today.

The Bearcat mascot today.

In 2008 the Cincinnati Zoo adopted a three month old Binturong or "Bearcat". The zoo had a public naming contest where they decided on the name "Lucy." Lucy is now a prominent figure at the University of Cincinnati and can often be found on Sheakley Lawn before home football games.

 

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