The Wolfpacker: An Independent Magazine Covering NC State Sports
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of concrete bleachers opened on the west side of the stadium, increasing the permanent seating capacity at the piecemeal facility. There were never any official pronounce- ments about adopting a new nickname for the football team, no Board of Trustees votes or Athletic Council recommendations. It just went from a February suggestion to September acceptance. The day before the team's first game of the 1921 season, The Fayetteville Observer reported: "Tomorrow afternoon at 3:30 p.m. Coach Hartsell will unleash the Wolfpack in the opening game of the grid season. Randolph Macon furnishes the opposition." In its report of that game, which was de- layed by a week because of a drought in Ra- leigh, The News & Observer referred to the new name begrudgingly, perhaps because it no longer could use the nicknames it had often employed. "Living up to its newly acquired nick- name in parts of only two quarters, North Carolina State College 'Wolfpack' yes- terday pried the lid off the 1921 gridiron season by handing a 21-to-0 drubbing to Randolph Macon College of Virginia," the newspaper reported. It later referred to the "Wolfpack" as "lamblike," perhaps revealing even more about the paper's affiliations than anything about the team. However, it should be noted that begin- ning in 1921, only the football team was called the Wolfpack. All the other athletic programs were re- ferred to by the old nicknames until 1925, when football and basketball coach Gus Tebell's team unveiled red silk uni- forms on the hardwoods. They adopted the nickname "Red Terrors" during that time and all other teams except football followed suit through the Depression and World War II. When Col. John Harrelson returned from his service in World War II, his title changed from Dean of Administration to Chancellor, the first chief executive of the college to have that title. He soon went about trying to change the name of the Wolfpack, which he closely associated with the Germany Navy's submarines. In July 1946, less than a year after he earned his new title, he asked the student body to consider a name change for the football team. "The only thing lower than a wolf is a snake in the grass," Harrelson proclaimed. He offered a contest for students and alumni to come up with a better nickname, with first prize being six season football tickets for the next year. The nominees were less than inspiring: the North Staters, the Cardinals, the Hornets, the Cultivators, the Cotton Pickers, the Pine- Rooters (a down-east name for pigs), the Auctioneers and the Calumets. The latter two were reference to tobacco auctions that had been common for nearly 200 years in North Carolina. As it turned out, the overwhelming choice of the male student population — and most of their wives — was to keep the Wolf- pack nickname. Harrelson gave up the fight. It didn't hurt that the Wolfpack football team, led by newly hired coach Beattie Feathers, made its first postseason bowl appearance, facing Oklahoma in the Ga- tor Bowl. New basketball coach Everett Case led the hoops team, still called the "Red Terrors," to its first Southern Conference championship since 1929. And new baseball coach Vic Sorrell, a longtime star pitcher of the Detroit Tigers, began building his suc- cessful baseball program. That success and the national attention those teams garnered by playing in national events like bowl games, and both the NCAA and National Invitation tournaments helped make the Wolf- pack a unique and well-protected brand today. In November 1983, the nickname "Wolf- pack," the Struttin' Wolf and Block S logos all became federally licensed and registered trademarks with the U.S. Patent and Trade- mark Office. NC State became one of the first NCAA universities to do so, and it was be- cause of its unique one-word construction and the preexisting awareness of its sports teams. Proceeds from the sale of licensed colle- giate apparel and other branded goods raise about $1 million annually for the NC State general scholarships fund, though the univer- sity continues to lose some money each year for unlicensed and counterfeit logo goods. Through the years, NC State has fought legal battles to protect its unique nickname and the logos associated with it. In particu- lar, the University of Nevada Wolf Pack and NC State have gone wolf head-to-wolf head over the use of a similar primary logo, but have reached an agreement that allows Ne- vada to use something similar as long as it has a top hat, not the traditional sailor's cap that NC State has used dating back to the adoption of the Wolfpack nickname in the late 1940s. In 2015, Keuka College, a Division III school in upstate New York, changed its name to the Wolves after pressure from NC State about trademark infringement, and Loyola University, a NAIA school in New Orleans, adopted the two-word Wolf Pack over its original Wolfpack over the same likelihood-of-confusion issues. So in the 100 years since the Wolfpack was officially formed, NC State has been strong enough to protect one of the few truly unique nicknames — as "snappy and aggres- sive" as it may be — in college athletics. ■ Beattie Feathers (left) led his 1946 football team to the Gator Bowl after an 8-2 regular season at a time when the Chancellor was trying to replace the Wolfpack nickname. The overwhelming choice of the student body was to keep the name, and soon all athletic teams at the school were known as the Wolfpack. PHOTOS COURTESY NC STATE Tim Peeler is a regular contributor to The Wolfpacker and can be reached at tmpeeler@ncsu.edu. JULY/AUGUST 2021 ■ 55