Bearcat

Definition: The name used by Cincinnati's athletic teams originates with a cheerleader at a World War I era football game between Cincinnati and Kentucky.

During the second half of that hard-fought football game, UC cheerleader Norman "Pat" Lyon, building on the efforts of fullback Leonard K. "Teddy" Baehr, created the chant: "They may be Wildcats, but we have a Baehr-cat on our side."

The crowd took up the cry: "Come on, Baehr-cat!" Cincinnati prevailed, 14-7, and the victory was memorialized in a cartoon published on the front page of the student newspaper, the weekly University News, on Nov. 3. The cartoon, by John "Paddy" Reece, depicted a bedraggled Kentucky Wildcat being chased by a creature labeled "Cincinnati Bear Cats".

In zoology, "bearcat" has been used to describe the binturong, a large cat native to Malaysia. A binturong from the Cincinnati Zoo serves as an unofficial mascot at some UC games.

-- Source: gobearcats.cstv.com