Religious symbolism in U.S. sports team names and mascots

Sports clubs and teams select their image or mascot based on any number of factors, including choosing an image based on a desire to pick a symbol that will attempt to convey the assets the clubs and teams aim to display, such as strength, courage, aggression, and endurance. Scholars have drawn connections between desires such as these and the religious totems found in polytheism, where visual representations of animals serve as symbols to express the physical and spiritual qualities of community.[1][2] Adoration of a mascot by a school or company can be seen as religiously significant. However, economic factors also come into play, as both schools and sports-franchise owners want to make money. Just as an appealing, marketable symbol can generate vast revenue, so can profits suffer if a potentially offensive symbol alienates some potential fans. This consideration as well can explain why sectarian religious symbols rarely appear in sports-team names and mascots.

Most of the teams listed here belong to schools and not to professional franchises. The reasons for this are subject to debate. In schools administrators, teachers, and parents act as a community to give students education in local values, and in many places these values come from religious institutions like churches and synagogues. So schools often become de facto representatives of a community's religious ideals as well as visual representatives of that community at a state, national, and international level. These conditions combine to make school sports a place for religious symbols, after they get filtered through the secular values both of the nation at large and of sport itself. This filtering produces mixed-value mascots like "Demon Deacons" of Wake Forest University and the "Hustlin' Quakers" (formerly "Fightin' Quakers", subsequently simply "Quakers") of Earlham College.

Despite the sensitive nature of religious issues in the United States of America, religious imagery in American sport has generated little controversy. Subtle spins on generic symbols like the crusader have come under attack for their insensitivity to non-Christian groups, but by and large religiously inspired team names and mascots have not been scrutinized. This contrasts with team names and mascots from Native American cultural sources.

There seems to be a clustering of religiously inspired mascots and team symbols in the American Midwest. This area's population is predominantly Protestant or Calvinist and the culture of the Midwest tends to be conservative. This may be a reason for the preponderance of religion symbolism in even non-religious schools and institutions, but does not explain in any way why this symbolism would be Catholic in nature.

The institutions listed below—some of which are Catholic—endorse religious symbolism either by the team name or individual mascots. Some are negative, menacing symbols such as the various Demons and Devils, but a majority of them take on positive connotations within Catholicism. These include the Saints, Angels and Friars.

Included here are team names and mascots associated with Protestantism. As the list suggests the visual vocabulary of non-Catholic Christianity, particularly in American sport, does not differ significantly from Catholic Christianity. What distinguishes this section has less to do with symbols themselves and more with context. Six of these schools are affiliated with the NCAA and one is affiliated with the NAIA.

The majority of these schools are located in Southeastern coastal states like North Carolina or South Carolina. In this part of the country religiously affiliated colleges and universities have existed since colonial times, when the majority of European Americans living in North American colonies were Protestant Christians. The religiously inspired team names and mascots are a part of this legacy, and associations between school spirit and local religious belief are therefore more historically acceptable in this part of the country.

In spite of this legacy, the teams at most Protestant affiliated colleges and schools do not identify with religious symbols. There are nearly 1,000 Protestant colleges and universities in the U.S. alone. But out of all of these, only 14 identify with religious names or mascots. That's less than 2%.

This makes sense, because not all of these names and mascots were inspired by religion. The origin of the famous Duke Blue Devil mascot for instance can be traced back to the World War I era. Units of French soldiers called "les Diables Beus" marshalled won fame in America. They inspired the Duke student body to make the Blue Devil the school's official mascot in 1911. The name was much more unpopular with the Methodism than with anyone else.[18]

The inspiration for a name or mascot also comes from relationships and in particular, rivalries with other schools. Until 1937 Wake Forest's men's athletics teams were known as "the Deacons," "the Baptists," or "Old Gold and Black." But after hiring a new coach and having way more success the school was looking for a way to show its prowess. They beat Duke in a game of football and the president praised them for "fighting like demons" to clinch the win, so the name stuck.[19] So the process of inventing an image for a sports team comes from relationships. Clubs and teams can make their images visual reminders of a meaningful moment in school nhisotry. Again, the suggested correlation between sports team mascots and the totems comes into play as some Native American tribes mixed images of vanquished enemies with their own to assimilate their powers.

Powerful images of demons, devils and knights remind us of the mascots of Catholic teams, but Protestant teams also draw on symbols from their own beliefs, generally involving religious leadership and including Deacons, Preachers, Evangels, Quakers and Fightin Christians.

There are few professional teams that use religious symbolism in their mascots. This is probably driven by their desire to appeal to much larger and diverse fan bases than colleges and schools. Examples of this, where the name has no religious significance, include the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, whose name is simply alliterative and the New Orleans Saints, whose name is derived a well-known jazz song.

• Stockton Thunder, professional hockey uses the Norse god Thor as mascot
• Yeshiva University Maccabees, Jewish.

Most teams with mascots such as "Devils" or "Wizards" have little to no affiliation with any religious groups. They may choose their mascots for the purpose of intimidating their opponents. Mascots are usually depicted as mischievous or even cute and have no spiritual representation. Devils are one of the most common mascots throughout American sports. This can likely be attributed to Christian beliefs being the most common of religions in the U.S. The devil is normally used as a fierce, intimidating image to represent teams.

• Collegiate sport ritual in the United States
• List of college sports team nicknames
• List of mascots
• List of sports team names and mascots derived from indigenous peoples
• Native American mascot controversy
• Totem