Who is Loyola Chicago's basketball mascot? Exploring the history and legacy of LU Wolf

Sports games and mascots go hand-in-hand as the latter is used to keep the spectators entertained in the middle of the games. These mascots are often carefully chosen to represent a school/team. For Loyola University Chicago, its mascot, LU Wolf, owes its existence to its namesake saint, St. Ignatius of Loyola. But this was not always what the sports teams at Loyola were associated with.

Loyola Chicago's mascot history

In its initial days, college teams were assigned school colors as their names. The first attempt at creating a nickname was in 1925 by the then-football coach of Loyola Chicago. He joined hands with the student newspaper and conducted a contest to name the football team. While there was a winning entry, it never really stuck and was soon forgotten.

Later, in 1926, after a much more serious attempt, Loyola's teams got their nickname: Ramblers. This was a callback to the football team's extensive travel extensively across the United States, "rambling" from place to place for games.

When it came to designing a mascot, the idea came from athletic department employees Tom Cooney and Marty Hawkins. They were trying to draw fans to the basketball team. So in 1981, the pair decided to create a mascot, 'hobo,' that represented the school's history of rambling across the country to play football.

“We thought it would be fun, and we wanted to bring fun to the games,” Cooney said.

Nicknamed Bo, the mascot's debut during a game against the University of Minnesota in 1982 was an instantaneous success. Students volunteered to play the streetwise vagrant known for his inappropriate gestures and staged, jokey bouts with other mascots.

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Why did LU's mascot change to wolf?

In 1987, Chuck Schwarz took over as athletic director, and he felt like a 'bum' was not a good representation of a prestigious university's teams. The LU Wolf was introduced as the new mascot for the Ramblers in 1990. The animal takes its inspiration from the coat-of-arms of its namesake saint's family.

The Loyolas were known to be charitable and feed friends, neighbors, soldiers and even wild animals in their home country, Spain. The crest of the family is a carving of two wolves eating over a cauldron. The LU Wolf is a nod to the generosity of the family and also the spirit of St. Ignatius.