The History Behind the Georgia Bulldog
It’s the best time of year — college football season. But before you put on your Georgia gear and start cheering on the Dawgs, you should have some idea about the history behind the greatest mascot of all time: the Georgia Bulldog. Read on to learn more about the Georgia Bulldog and its origins.
The First Georgia Bulldog
The very first canine mascot at Georgia was a female Bull Terrier named Trilby. She started her reign all the way back in 1894. After Trilby came Mr. Angel, who became the mascot in 1944 and was a brindle and white English Bulldog. Then came Butch and Tuffy, who shared the role from 1947-1948, and were both brindle English Bulldogs. Mike, another brindled English Bulldog, took over in 1951 and was mascot for five years. Clearly there is a long Bulldog history!
The Georgia Bulldog Lineage
It was only in 1956, when Sonny Seiler brought his pure white English Bulldog, Hood’s Old Dan, to the UGA home opener, that a pure white English Bulldog was first named official live mascot. The rest is history! Georgia’s second all-white English Bulldog was named Ole Dan’s Uga, and served as the mascot from 1966 to 1976. Each subsequent mascot has been called Uga III, Uga IV, and so on. Only one Uga, Uga IX, hasn’t been completely white. That’s a pretty impressive streak! Uga X started in 2015 and is still going strong as UGA’s mascot. Each dog is given a custom jersey and a varsity letter to wear at games. You can find Uga X at home games in the air-conditioned on-field doghouse cheering on the Dawgs!
The Greatest Mascots in College Football History
With the 150th anniversary of College Football being this year, Sports Illustrated created their list of the Top 10 College Mascots in history. The list included four mascots from the SEC & coming in at #1 was Uga! The other SEC mascots included were Smokey, Cocky, and Mike the Tiger. Checkout their full list to learn about the history of the other mascots.
Now that you know the history of the Georgia Bulldog, you can cheer even louder for the best team. Go Dawgs!