College sports is unquestionably one of the hotbeds of colorful nicknames and uniquely designed mascots. Thanks to ESPN, we are given a chance to know the 10 of very best nicknames that many college sports fans might not readily identify.

I cannot help but wonder if there is some sort of thought process behind these names or it’s just based on pure creativity. Luckily, Smargon, a site that tracks nicknames of thousands of schools nationwide, has pointed out the similarities among these monikers:

The better nicknames illustrate one or two things about a school – something fierce that will strike fear in the hearts of opposing teams and/or something local. When you’re attending a college game, if you are or were a student there, when the athletes take the field or court it feels as if they are taking it for you. You feel as though you have a lot in common with them and you continue to have that connection for life.

Though it’s all about nicknames, you will also notice the creativity behind the mascot designs. For instance, the Evergreen State College (Olympia, Wash.) is known as Geoducks and its mascot is a giant green clam (2nd from left in the image above). Its name is actually the term for the largest burrowing clam in the world and known to be an aphrodisiac because of its phallic-looking siphon!

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This entry was posted on Monday, February 11th, 2008 at 12:09 pm and is filed under Branding, Logo Design News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.