What is a Hoosier? A quick search on Google says that a Hoosier is a “native or inhabitant of Indiana,” but it means more than that to IU, although the school hasn’t quite figured out how to represent it yet.
IU has been through several mascots. In the 1920s, a Hoosier was a navy billy goat. In the '30s, it was a collie dog. In the late '50s, it was a bulldog, and in 1958, it was Theta Chi’s bulldog Ox.
In October of 1965, a unanimous decision by the student senate elected a bison to be IU’s new mascot, inspired by the bison on the state seal of Indiana. The bison managed to be the most successful and longest running Hoosier depiction, though it did not hold on until present day.
Starting to have a bison as the mascot for IU happened around the same time that Nick’s English Hut on Kirkwood adopted the bison as their logo. For them, it did stick.
Gregg “Rags” Rago, the manager and owner of Nick’s, says he is not sure if the logo and mascot happened at exactly the same time, but he does believe there was a connection between the two.
“The bison was probably the best mascot we had,” Rago said in an interview. “It came from the '60s, and I do believe there’s a correlation between the bison from that era and the bison on our logo. ”
IU students originally wanted a live bison to run around on the field, but purchasing a bison is expensive and the state wasn’t willing to fund it. So the students settled on a costume.
Unfortunately, though realistic and detailed, the 1967 bison costume had a very poor design. The students who were inside the costume didn’t have holes for their arms, and the bison only had two front legs. The back legs were missing, and the bison body cut in half created a gruesome, slaughterhouse effect.
“Probably because it was such a problem to wear it, people just didn’t want to do it,” James Capshew, IU historian and 1979 alumnus, said in an interview. “You have to get somebody to do it. If it’s nasty and not very comfortable, you couldn’t get a volunteer.”
In a message to the athletic director in 1967, Phillip J. Badell, a Varsity Club Chairman, detailed his distaste for the bison costume.
“For several years now, I have silently suffered untold agony while watching our “Half-a-Bison” at our home football games,” Badell wrote. “It was plausible, when we had what some called “Half-a-Football-Team,” that we should have “Half-a-Bison” and this wasn’t too bad. Now, it appears we have a whole football team and we now need a complete, whole, 100 percent bison.”
According to a 1969 IDS article, IU reached out to Walt Disney for help with the costume. Disney, busy and unable to help design it himself, recommended a Los Angeles firm responsible for bringing many of his movie characters to life. The suit cost $1,400, which was more than a live bison would have at the time.
Though expensive, the costume had many downfalls. Cheerleaders and students wearing the costume were unable to see through the mask. They needed assistance to get around on the field and were led by cheerleaders holding a rope like a leash, according to the journal, “The Rise and Fall of Campus Mascots at Indiana University” by Jennifer Nailos.
Dave Thompson, a student who wore the costume, said in a 1967 IDS article that the bison costume held in a lot of heat, and that he had to hold his head in a specific position for the mask, making the job painful.
His greatest fear was tripping in the costume, and the only opening for the students in the costume to see out of were holes in the nostrils of the bison’s face.
Between the costumed students stumbling around the fields and many debates between the students and the administration, the bison was laid to rest as IU's mascot in 1969.
The next attempt at a mascot was in 1979, introducing a man with a red beard and a large cowboy hat called Mr. Hoosier Pride. Many people took offense to it, including some IU students who voiced their negative opinions.
“Mr. Hoosier Pride is the most asinine and ridiculous-looking character anyone could have ever dreamed up to be IU’s mascot,” IU student Ben Blair said in a 1979 IDS letter to the editor. “Last fall, the Daily Student reported that the character was created because IU had no mascot or symbol to represent it. That’s not true. Even during the time I have been at IU, a bison served as the symbol to the Hoosiers.”
Mr. Hoosier Pride was retired after one football season, but the bison had made a lasting impression and still had one hoof in the door. In 1980 the Herald-Times, then known as the Herald-Telephone, reported that some people argued to bring the bison back.
“My son suggested we just revert back to the bison,” reader Karen Johnston wrote. “After all, its picture has already appeared on the hundreds of IU memento and souvenir items in past years. It was always a healthy-appearing ‘winner.’”
“No need to be without a mascot,” wrote reader Harry Orchard. “You have one already. The American Bison.”
But it wasn’t just the readers of the Herald-Times who wanted the bison back — there were articles in the IDS about bringing the animal back as well.
“Even though our teams are the ‘Hoosiers’ and not the ‘Bisons,’ a Big Red Bison would be a tremendous improvement over Mr. Hoosier Pride,” classical studies assistant professor Betty Rose Nagle wrote in 1980.
In a 2011 Indianapolis Star article, Fred Glass said he still receives support to bring back the bison.
However, despite the pleas to bring back the bison, both the suit and idea were laid to rest, as was the big IU mascot debate.
“We have a tradition of not having a mascot,” Capshew said. “We have a lot of pride in our school and our athletic teams and things like that, and these mascots are about focusing that pride and that spirit. We haven’t had it for 37 or 38 years, why do we need it?”
