By Chris Guthrie<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Prior to 1925, Tarleton\u2019s athletic teams did not have an official nickname. Fearful that the school\u2019s teams might become struck with some sort of horrid derivative title like \u201cJunior Aggies,\u201d Coach and Athletic Director William J. Wisdom offered a five dollar prize to the person who could come up with the best original nickname for Tarleton\u2019s teams. However, the contest was cut short when wisdom came up with a nickname of his own. In an oft-repeated story, Wisdom was walking across campus one day when he suddenly hit on the name \u201cPlowboys.\u201d Since the name was certainly distinctive and accurately reflected the rural backgrounds of the majority of Tarleton students at the time, Wisdom declared that the contest was over and kept the five dollars for himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wisdom\u2019s nickname of \u201cPlowboys\u201d served Tarleton\u2019s teams well for thirty-six years, from 1925 to 1961. However, Tarleton\u2019s elevation to a four-year senior institution in 1961 prompted many \u201cstudents, faculty, and leading dignitaries\u201d to argue that \u201cthe name Plowboys is not appropriate for our new role as a liberal arts college.\u201d As a result the Tarleton Student Council voted unanimously on October 2, 1961 to \u201cpresent the student body with an opportunity to change the name Plowboys if they so desire.\u201d The council accordingly organized a campus referendum for October 4th. When they arrived at the ballot box (at the old Recreation Hall), students could either select and deposit a \u201cyes\u201d ballot (indicating they favored a name change) or a \u201cno\u201d ballot. If they favored a name change, students were also invited to write their suggestions for a new name on their \u201cyes\u201d ballot. Five hundred and eighty one students participated in the referendum and the results were overwhelming: 403 \u201cyes\u201d votes to only 178 \u201cno\u201d votes. Only a small portion of those who cast \u201cyes\u201d votes made specific recommendations for a new name. But of those who did respond, \u201cTexans\u201d headed the list of potential replacement names. Other suggestions included Trojans, Chargers, Knights, Cowboys, and Tornadoes. The Student Council then organized another election for the following week (October 11), drew up a ballot which listed all the name suggestions, and instructed student voters to circle the one they liked the best before casting their ballot. The Council also ruled that a name had to have an absolute majority of the votes cast in order to be adopted. Most observers figured that this rule would require several run-off contests before an undisputed winner emerged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The results must have surprised them. Out of 660 votes cast, the name \u201cTexan\u201d received a first-ballot absolute majority of 332 votes. \u201cCowboys\u201d came in a distant second with 150 votes and the four other names only collected 178 votes together (why so many people felt that \u201cCowboys\u201d represented \u201cour new role as a liberal arts college\u201d better than \u201cPlowboys\u201d must always remain a mystery). Although a bit bland and unoriginal, and certainly lacking the distinctive character of \u201cPlowboys,\u201d the winning nickname of \u201cTarleton Texans\u201d did have a certain alliterative quality and proved to be easily adaptable to the introduction of women\u2019s interscholastic athletics in 1968. Although some argued that the name \u201cTexans\u201d could easily be used to describe female teams without any kind of modification, college officials nonetheless selected the feminized version of \u201cTexAnns\u201d as their nickname. The alternative, they argued, was to have Tarleton\u2019s female teams called the \u201cLady Texans\u201d in local newspaper headlines. The nicknames \u201cTexans\u201d and \u201cTexAnns\u201d remain the official nicknames of Tarleton athletic teams today. But the name \u201cPlowboys\u201d has not completely disappeared. A male spirit organization founded in 1983 adopted the old name as their title and thereby saved \u201cPlowboys\u201d from complete oblivion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Guthrie, Christopher. John Tarleton and his Legacy: The History of Tarleton State University, 1899-1999. Acton, MA: Tapestry Press, 1999. pp. 293-294.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Plowboys, Texans, and TexAnns By Chris Guthrie Prior to 1925, Tarleton\u2019s athletic teams did not have an official nickname. Fearful that the school\u2019s teams might become struck with some sort …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":580,"parent":1453,"menu_order":4,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"template-fullwidth.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1540","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"featured_image_src":null,"coauthors":[],"author_meta":{"author_link":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/library\/author\/kyle-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-3\/","display_name":"kyle"},"relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 4 years ago","modified":"Updated 4 years ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on August 10, 2022","modified":"Updated on August 10, 2022"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on August 10, 2022 1:55 pm","modified":"Updated on August 10, 2022 1:56 pm"},"featured_img_caption":"","featured_img":false,"series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/62"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1540\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1453"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/library\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}