In a previous Carolina Curious, WFDD reporter Amy Diaz answered a question about the story behind the Wake Forest University “Demon Deacon.”
It had a Guilford County listener wondering about another nearby school’s mascot — University of North Carolina at Greensboro’s Spiro the Spartan.
For the latest edition of Carolina Curious, Diaz traces its century-old origins with University Archivist Erin Lawrimore.
“So it's kind of a complicated and convoluted history that you do have to go all the way back to the 1890s to really understand," Lawrimore says.
UNCG was founded in 1891 as a women’s college. Specifically, Lawrimore says it was for women who wanted to become teachers in the state’s public school system.
“On our very first diplomas that were issued in 1893, Minerva is used on the seal," she says. "The Roman goddess of wisdom makes perfect sense as the symbol for a college for women who are going to go into teaching.”
Fast forward to the 1960s. The UNC system passes a resolution that all schools needed to go coed. And when the first male undergraduates arrive on campus, so does the school’s first athletic coordinator: a man named Frank Pleasants.
“In the fall of 1967, they basically were getting ready to start intercollegiate competition with a basketball team, and they really needed a mascot," Lawrimore says. "We had Minerva again since the 1890s, but there was not an athletics mascot that the men felt was appropriate for them.”
As they worked to find one, Lawrimore says they explicitly steered clear of animals, declaring those were overdone. But they considered lots of other historic-sounding names like the Trojans, Vikings, and Brigadiers.
“My favorite quote of all, they discounted the Brigadiers because, and this is the direct quote: ‘It sounded too jazzy.’”
So they landed on the Spartans. Pleasants is quoted in the student newspaper saying it had a masculine ring to it and was associated with courage. It was also vaguely connected with Minerva.
“In that it was ancient. Except they are Greek, and Minerva is Roman," Lawrimore says. "So it's a confusing of ancient civilizations. Someone didn't do well in Greek Civ class.”
But Lawrimore says there was a bit more to it than all of that. She found another quote from Pleasants in the paper.
“He says ‘We were a little concerned that some sports writer might nickname us the daisies or some other prissy name, if our teams were not named before they began intercollegiate competition,’" Lawrimore says. "So you've got a heavy sense of misogyny with a little dash of homophobia thrown in.”
A local newspaper even ran an editorial cartoon making fun of UNCG for going coed and having athletics. It showed a Carolina football player sitting in the locker room, with a woman next to him in a typical 60s bouffant, shoulder pads, a jersey and a UNCG helmet in her hand.
“That's not kind of the happy, fun version of the Spartans story that often comes out," Lawrimore says. "But really, at the core, that's the need, in the late 60s when athletics was launched, to have a mascot that was seen as hypermasculine to balance out the fact that we had only been coed for a few years at that point.”
But even though the Spartan emerged as the mascot, Minerva never went away. Graduates from UNCG will still see her on their diplomas. She also has a statue on campus.
Lawrimore says Minerva represents the academic mission of the university, while the Spartan represents the athletic one. They stand together even though historically, they wouldn’t have.
“We have a number of classic studies students who work in our department, and they always just kind of laugh at it," Lawrimore says. "They're like, ‘Yeah, it makes no sense. And I laugh. I'm like, ‘It doesn't, but it's been that way for 60-some years.’”
The name Spiro was a relatively new addition, though. It was chosen in 2011 and has a similarly confusing backstory.
“It's noted in a lot of things at that time that Spiro was chosen because it's Greek for “spirit,” which it's not," Lawrimore says. "You have this history of leaning in towards Greek and Roman history, but not always being accurate with it.”
So maybe they didn’t consult the classics department when choosing the mascot. But Lawrimore says, she still hopes it never changes.