The Colorado State Teachers College Teachers won the Eastern Division of the Rocky Mountain Intercollegiate Athletic Conference in 1926.
The fans paraded into the first homecoming game in 1923 lead by two-year old Bobby Cooper, son of head coach George Cooper, riding on a toy bear.
The Colorado State College bear in 1960.
Mr. Bear, 1970s.
Bentley Bear, 1980s.
Klawz first appeared in 2003.
Bonfire at homecoming, ca. 1955.
The campus community elected Dean McCoy as the marshal for the College in 1931. McCoy, along with his two “yell leaders”, were responsible for coordinating all of the pep rallies and cheering during the home games.
Cheerleaders at Jackson Field, ca. 1960.
Band playing at Nottingham Field, ca. 1995
Prior to the mid-1920s, the athletic teams were identified as the "Teachers." As the role of atheletics grew on campus, it was felt that a new mascot was needed. During the first homecoming game in 1923, the transformation to the "Bears" began. Coach George Cooper and many others on campus wanted a mascot that sounded more powerful. Since Totem Teddy, a Tlingit totem pole which was given to the school in 1914 by alumni Andrew Thompson, was already an important fixture on campus, the bear was a natural symbol for the campus.
During that first homecoming game, George Coopers son rode a toy bear to serve as the mascot for the school. In the 1920s, a live bear was used as a team mascot, but the bear’s behavior proved to be unpredictable and potentially dangerous. The mascot has transformed numerous times over the years including incarnations as Mr. Bear, Bentley Bear and Klawz.
Totem Teddy remained a fixture on campus until 2003. An alumnus discovered a historic photograph of the totem pole in its Alaskan home in a Tlingit village. The totem was an important artifact for the Tlingit, and the University of Northern Colorado returned the totem home.
The original school colors were lavender and yellow. The colors were used after many members of the early classes showed up at a football game in these hues. In 1922, new football coach George Cooper asked that the athletic colors be changed to dark purple and gold. Student council voted to adopt these colors for the school. Cooper stated that lavender was not suitable for athletics but felt that dark purple was not a drastic difference from lavender.
The switch to Blue and Gold is less clear. One theory is that Coach Bob Blasi ordered new jerseys and washed them. When he took them out of the wash, the color had streaked. He tried it again with another batch of jerseys with the same result. The salesmen then stated that good purple dyes no longer existed and spectators would not be able to notice. Blasi and Jack Hunt, UNC’s uniform distributor in the 1960s have denied this story. Another theory is that purple jerseys were becoming more expensive. Starting in the late 1950s, the school’s sports coaches began to choose navy blue over purple for their team’s uniforms. Purple and gold, however, were still the official athletic colors until late 1960s. In 1976, an agreement was made to officially change the athletic colors to navy blue and old gold while keeping purple and gold for academic colors. In 2000, it was decided to switch the academic colors to navy blue and old gold to match athletics.