Oolong and Pekoe: What’s up with all these teams called Tigers? We are calling on colleges and universities to get a bit more inventive with these names because this lack of imagination is beginning to reflect poorly on all of us in the cat family. Places like Tuskegee, Morehouse and Lincon, MO livened up their Tiger nicknames with colors, like Gold, Maroon and Blue, respectively. Sadly, few other Tiger-named teams have followed their example. In a “kitties are doing it for themselves” spirit we have recommendations that would liven up the names of many Tiger teams. In a future post we’ll address this whole Wildcats situation, too. Now, on with our presentation.
Current name: West Alabama Tigers
Our recommended change: West Alabama Iron Tigers Alabama is so strongly associated with iron that this one makes sense and sounds great!
Current name: Sewanee Tigers
Our recommended change: Sewanee River-Tigers This one is just as self-explanatory as our first one. Or since Sewanee is called the University of the South maybe the Southern Tigers. Either one is fine with us.
Current name: Lincoln (PA) Tigers
Our recommended change: We thought about taking our lead from Tennessee’s Lincoln Memorial University Railsplitters and calling them the Railsplitting Tigers, but that’s just plain nutty. The Pennsylvania locale suggests Keystone Tigers instead.
Current name: St Paul’s (VA) Tigers
Our recommended change: Since St Paul is also called Saul of Tarsus the nickname Tarsus Tigers suggests itself. The women’s teams could call themselves the Thecla Tigers!
Current name: Ouachita Baptist Tigers
Our recommended change: Since using a religious nickname twice in a row would be unimaginative, we figured we would take a hint from the team’s colors, purple and white, and go with the Purple Tigers.
Current name: Fort Hays Tigers
Our recommended change: Fort Hays is in Kansas. When you think Kansas you think gunfighters, and not just any gunfighter but Wild Bill Hickok. Sooooo, we’re going with the Wild Tigers here.
Current name: Georgetown (KY) Tigers
Our recommended change: We’ll go with a musical theme here and suggest the Blue Grass Tigers. Their mascot could be a Tiger playing Blue Grass music.
Current name: Colorado College Tigers
Our recommended change: This one’s obvious: the Snow-Tigers (hey, if you can have Snow Leopards why not Snow Tigers) or maybe the Skiiing Tigers if you want to go “Oddball Cool” as Mr Wozniak likes to say.
For the rest, half of the remaining Tiger teams could change their name to the Bengals, and that would leave an acceptable number of teams named Tigers. We hope the respective institutions of higher learning will strongly consider these changes, or we just might have to start visiting their admin offices and scratching up all the furniture. Our thanks to Mr Wozniak for providing this forum. He’s always handy at scratching our ears, too.
Great stuff! Really cute cats, too. They look very sophisticated. And I think West Alabama should change their name to the Iron Tigers like u suggest. btw, ur Bad Movies page is incredible!
Thanks for the comments! I’ll let Noralee and Bill know you liked their cats. Glad you like my Bad Movies page.
Those cats are so beautiful. And they’re comments are priceless.
Thanks for the comment! I’ll let their parents know you liked their cats!
Beautiful cats aren’t they! This is funny because my wife always zings me about how many teams are called Tigers.
Thank you for stopping by! I always laugh at the long, boring list of teams called Tigers, Eagles, Bulldogs and Wildcats.