From making moonshine to blazing trails: The many mascots of NGU since the 1920s
Photo Courtesy of Joanna Beasley
Colby Craig, Staff Writer
Believe it or not, North Greenville University has not always been represented by crusader. There have been quite a few mascots to represent NGU in the school’s history, and some of them might be surprising.
The first mascot of North Greenville was recorded as the Moonshiner in 1924. A moonshiner in the context of the 1920s is a person who makes highly potent corn alcohol illegally with the intent of distributing it to common people. It is not recorded whether sports teams were represented by the moonshiner before 1924, but there is a possibility.
It may be a shock to hear that NGU was associated with moonshiners, but Joanna Beasley, the NGU archivist, believes it was not as strange as it sounds.
“Many of the early students came from moonshining families and/or were moonshiners themselves. A great example of this was the Crain brothers. J. Dean and E.B. Crain were moonshiners who decided they wanted more out of their lives,” she said.
The NGU sports teams were seen representing the name until 1927 when it was no longer shown in the future yearbooks despite being titled “The Moonshiner.”
The Moonshiner showed its name in the yearbook until 1950 when the mascot shifted to being the “Black Widow Spiders.” The lifespan of this mascot was very short, only lasting three years, and was the result of a vote held by the student body. The Black Widow is what decided NGU’s color combination of red and black which has stuck around to the present.
In 1953, the mascot went through another change. The short life of the widows was soon replaced by the Mountaineers. The mountaineer mascot was meant to represent the location of NGU and its significance in the school’s founding.
Football was no longer available as a college sport at NGU in 1953, which is when Dick Campbell coached baseball and men’s basketball. These teams ended up wearing widow jerseys until 1954 when they finally changed into “Mounties” jerseys.
Women’s sports wanted to be distinct from the mountaineer and so the Lassies were instated in 1958. The NGU women’s basketball team was around until 1969 when it took a break as a college sport. In 1973, it came back to NGU where the women’s basketball team took on the name “the Mountainettes” and later just “the Mounties.”
In 2001, the Mountaineers were eventually changed because of the negative stereotype behind “mountain folk.” The new mascot was eventually announced as “The Crusaders.” Crusaders brought the idea of the bloody historical event in the Middle East, but the original thought was much different than the name suggests.
Beasley said, “When it was originally picked, they said that it was more like Billy Graham crusades, like worship crusades, and not so much like the Middle East Crusades.”
The crusader was meant to place emphasis on NGU’s mission to equip transformational leaders for church and society, but there was a thought that being represented by crusaders would be dangerous for those who go into the mission field.
This year, NGU has made its newest transition to the Trailblazers. The new logo was chosen very carefully and is full of symbolism that represents the school’s mission and history.The fox represents wisdom, bravery, resourcefulness and adaptiveness. The shield represents strength and unity. The star represents the north star, which is often seen as a way for explorers to keep true to their trail.
