I WONDER | On wildcats, real and idealized

Q: Are there actual wild cats in the Manhattan area? A: Yes.

There are bobcats, which are relatively common, and there have been confirmed reports of mountain lions.

Bobcats are the things that look most like the original K-State mascot since I presume this is the premise of your question and have been around for quite awhile.

They can get pretty big up to 50 pounds but are generally smaller than mountain lions.

They also generally have spots, and relatively short tails.

Mountain lions are much bigger, getting up to 200 pounds, and have longer tails.

Only in recent years has the state government confirmed the presence of mountain lions in this area, and they are believed to just be passing through on the way to somewhere else.

They dont appear to live here permanently.

The first one officially confirmed was on some land in the northern part of Riley County, near Tuttle Creek Reservoir, where the landowner had set up a motion-triggered camera on a deer feeder.

That captured an image of the big cat, who was presumably hanging around to try to snag a deer.

Q: Why is K-State called the Wildcats? A: Because its way cooler than some cartoon bird.

Scuse me.

Kidding, not kidding.

The original mascot for the university was the Aggies, as I wrote here not long ago.

That was connected to the schools name at the time, Kansas State Agricultural College.

There was a labrador named Bosco who served as sort of a mascot for a hot minute in the early part of the 20th Century.

But that was an oddball tangent (albeit one that has resurfaced recently in some cheeky contexts) and the real next evolution was to the Wildcats.

That emerged in 1915, when the football coach, John Bender, started calling his team by that name, saying he wanted them to fight like a bunch of wild cats.

They went 3-4-1 that season, which was Benders only one at K-State, so the success of that change is debatable.

The Cats wins that year included rousing victories over Washburn, Friends and Southwestern College, the school in Winfield that has the fantastic mascot of the Moundbuilders.

Whats not debatable is that the nickname stuck, as did Benders other innovation: Homecoming.

Why did it stick? Well, it has the virtue of being related to the presence of actual wild cats in the area (see above) and also sounds ferocious.

And of course the whole Wildcat Creek alligator episode had not yet happened, so that wasnt really an option at the time.

The K-State Beauregards does have a nice ring, but timing is everything.

You can submit a question to this column by e-mail to [email protected] , or you can float them in the creek and get the gators to deliver them personally..

This article has been shared from the original article on themercury, here is the link to the original article.