Mascots That Are Greyhounds

The greyhound has a long history, tracing its roots all the way back to cave drawings over 8,000 years ago. Over the centuries, the Egyptians worshipped them, the English prized them and the world's famous revered them. The breed has been at the center of racing industries in the U.S. and Europe. Known for its intelligence and speed, it is little wonder that the greyhound has also been a favorite mascot of athletic teams.

  1. University of Indianapolis

    • Indianapolis is the home of the University of Indianapolis Greyhounds.

      Perhaps it isn't surprising that the home of the Indy 500 should choose a mascot built for speed. The University of Indianapolis, a private university founded in 1909 and serving about 5,000 students, has made "Indy the Greyhound" a staple at the school's athletic events. Donned in its team-appropriate red shirt and shorts, the towering silver greyhound has been the face of the university's athletic teams since 1926. The college, then known as Indiana Central, adopted the colors gray and cardinal red in 1919. A few years later, teams became known as the Warriors, but the nickname was short-lived. In 1926, following a school newspaper headline referring to one of the teams as greyhounds, a group of fans met and decided that "Greyhound" was a more fitting nickname. The greyhound has been the University's mascot since, although women athletic teams were referred to as "Whippets" until 1985.

    Assumption College

    • Assumption College's 2,100 students cheer on the Greyhounds for all of the school's athletic teams except ice hockey, where athletes are known as the Ice Hounds. Assumption College is a private Catholic liberal arts school in Worcester, Massachusetts. The school got its start in 1909 to serve the sons of French-Canadian immigrants and did not make the change to all English-speaking classes until the 1950s. Although the greyhound is the school mascot today, that wasn't always the case. From 1912 until 1933, the College's athletes were referred to only by the school's colors, blue and white. That was the year an unidentified priest remarked that the basketball team ran as fast as a bunch of greyhounds. The nickname stuck. Now a suited mascot, the college was first represented by a live greyhound named Pierre, owned by a French-Canadian lumberjack.

    Eastern New Mexico University

    • Eastern New Mexico University legend has it that the school's use of the greyhound as its athletic mascot traces its origins to 1934, when the football team's center forwarded the idea after seeing a Greyhound bus pass through the college's town of Portales on a daily basis. After much heated debate among students and faculty, the University settled on the greyhound as the school's official mascot, with the first logo looking much like the familiar logo on the bus that inspired it. The athletic teams remained Greyhounds exclusively until 1981, when the women's athletics department held a contest and added the name "Zias" to women's teams. Zia is the ancient symbol of Zia Pueblo Indians, and the symbol also adorns New Mexico's state flag. In 2009, the University's nearly 4,700 students welcomed an adopted pair of greyhounds as live mascots, later named Vic and Tory.