Marshall: What Could Have Been
Thundering Herd…not a bad school nickname. It sure beats Wildcats or Bulldogs or something obvious like that. But, according to the ever reliable source of Wikipedia, which is being very sarcastic if you couldn’t tell, it could have been so much cooler.
The Thundering Herd name came from a Zane Grey novel and later a movie. Prior to that, the Thundering Herd were the Indians. But the Thundering Herd nickname never really stuck. For years after the initial use of the Thundering Herd, many other options were discussed. It was not until 1965 that the faculty, alumni and students voted to officially stick with Thundering Herd, even though an earlier vote favored Big Green.
That is all well and good. That is how these things tend to work. But for decades other nicknames were suggested. Big Green would make sense, but it’s not too neat. This isn’t an Ivy League school after all. The Rams is pretty bad. The Judges would be the oddest group of people representing a school as the mascot. It’d be right up there with the Volunteers and Cornhuskers, but with a really odd mascot that every kid would want. Of course, the Judges would honor the school’s namesake, Chief Justice John Marshall. For a while, until people forgot what he looked like, that would be a great outfit for students…like those guys who dress up like JoePa.
The Green Gobblers would immediately become one of my favorite teams, but the Boogercats would be the greatest collegiate nickname in Division I. It would even be right up there with the Banana Slugs spanning all divisions of collegiate athletics. I don’t really know what a Boogercat is and Bill Gates doesn’t like it either, so it must not be a very popular animal, although the more proper name seems to be Boogiecat. Microsoft Word doesn’t like Boogiecat either. In any event, Boogercat or Boogiecat would be a great mascot. Marco the Bison is a pretty good mascot too, but it is no Boogercat.
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