18-03-2025
Bring back the bison: Could IU's long-lost beast of a mascot make an official return?
A move is afoot in Bloomington, dare we say a stampede, to bring back the humpbacked, shaggy-headed bison as the Indiana University Hoosiers mascot -- a beast that has a decades long, on-again, off-again, complicated relationship with the school.
Dating back to the 1920s, the bison has sporadically been aligned with IU, chosen because it also appears on the state seal of Indiana.
The creature disappeared as IU's official mascot in 1969, leaving the present day Hoosiers as one of the few major Division I programs without a tangible representative to rally fans at games and be the face of the athletic program.
But hints of the long-lost bison began to emerge after IU football coach Curt Cignetti came in last season, revitalizing the program and taking the team to its first College Football Playoff appearance.
Just days after the Hoosiers lost in the playoffs to Notre Dame, IU football began posting about its upcoming 2025 schedule using bison-themed game promotions and breathtaking images of the beast on social media, prompting IU fans to wonder if the bison might be making a comeback.
Showdown in Happy Valley.
— Indiana Football (@IndianaFootball) December 11, 2024
Among the posts IU football made to X were several that prominently promoted the bison. One read: "Showdown in Happy Valley," publicizing the Indiana vs. Penn State game, showing a bison peering down at a Nittany Lion.
For the Indiana vs. Oregon matchup, IU football's post featured a photo of a pair of bison wading in water toward Autzen Stadium, home of the Ducks, which read: "Hoosiers head west next fall."
And on the full IU football schedule posted to X, another foreshadowing of a possible mascot came with two bison horns piercing through the page atop the 2025 lineup.
IU would not say why the bison was used on social media or who made the decision. Millions of people viewed the IU football posts and the responses on X ranged from confusion to delight to disapproval.
"Not originally from here, but what's with the bison?" posted @Tvega72. "So a Hoosier is a bison. Hmm learn something new everyday," wrote @Hayeslonnie9. "I'm genuinely confused. Why a Bison?" responded @NittanyNC.
Others accused IU of stealing the idea from North Dakota State, which has a bison named Thundar as its mascot, or from Colorado, whose mascot is a live bison named Ember (originally Ralphie the Buffalo).
Mostly though, people seemed thrilled, even using the hashtag #bringbackthebison. "I'm a Boiler through and through but IU using the Bison as their unofficial mascot is tremendous," wrote @jonahswizer31. "Please tell me we are going back to the bison," @317casper responded.
Going back to the bison? It could happen.
The IU Student Government recently voted in favor of a bill called 'Bring Back the Bison Act of 2024,' an effort to reinstate the bison as IU's official mascot. This would strengthen "the sense of pride and unity amongst students and supporters of the university," the bill reads, in part.
After the bill passed, the Indiana Daily Student reported that student body president Cooper Tinsley "will work alongside IU Athletics to discuss how to implement the bison as an official mascot."
IndyStar reached out to IU's athletic department asking whether the bison is officially making a comeback as the Hoosiers' mascot, but did not receive a response.
A week before IU Student Government voted in favor of the bill, it posted a poll on Instagram asking its almost 3,000 followers, "Do you think we should bring the Bison back as the Indiana University Bloomington mascot?' According to the Indiana Daily Student, 72% of respondents voted yes.
IU students have been pushing for a mascot to call their own for decades and, through the years, have come up with various options, including a goat, an eagle, a guy named Hoosier Pride, a bison and many others that never made the history books.
"Nothing has really stuck," said Dina Kellams, director of University Archives and Special Collections at IU Libraries. But the upcoming bison-themed football schedule raises hope for fans, including Kellams.
"When I saw that," she said, "I'm like, 'Oh my gosh. They're finally going to do it.'"
No one knows for sure when the bison made its first appearance as a symbol at IU.
"I can't say for certain," said Kellams, "but in doing a little bit of my own research, it just looks like the idea has come and gone many times."
The bison appeared briefly in the 1920s, once on the cover of the May 1920 issue of "The Hoosier," a publication by the IU Writers' Club. But it would take two more decades before the bison would be promoted to school mascot.
That happened in 1946 when The Falcon Club, a men's group on campus that put on pep rallies and other athletic festivities, decided to launch a contest asking students to vote for a mascot. The bison, which had been on the state seal of Indiana since 1816, made perfect sense.
And so, the IU Hoosier Bisons it would be, at least that's what archives show from that time, said Kellams. "It ended up not going anywhere at all," she said.
After that, other references to bison can be found in university archives, including a photo from September 1949 of a display at IU's bookstore with a bison figure next to a school pennant. In 1956, a button from an IU School of Nursing wool cape included a bison.
And the cover of the May 1962 Indiana Alumni Magazine showed publicly for the first time the newly-adopted coat of arms for Indiana University. That official coat of arms included a bison.
But it wasn't until October 1965 that IU would have its first living, breathing creature walking the campus and on the field. That happened after the student senate voted unanimously to make the bison the official Hoosiers mascot.
"Indiana University students apparently have decided definitely the bison, the plains animal, which appears on the state seal will be the school's official mascot," an Oct. 21, 1965, article in the Indianapolis News reported. "Student officials were in Indianapolis early this week checking on the availability of the bison."
Originally, the idea was to bring a live bison by trailer to the games, which would be led down the sidelines and onto center field or court and then tied up during the games.
"It is hoped the animal will be at a pep rally tomorrow night," the Indianapolis News reported, "and at the IU-Washington State game at Bloomington Saturday afternoon."
Alas, the idea of a live bison was quickly nixed by university officials due to a variety of issues.
"The state was like, 'We're not going to stop you, but you know that's a really bad idea, right?'" said Kellams. "I mean, bison are dangerous, but they were determined they had found a farm that they could put this bison at and people could just bring it to campus for the games.
"That idea did not go anywhere. There were too many concerns about liabilities."
While bison appear slow, they can easily charge and outrun people, reaching speeds of up to 45 miles per hour, according to the National Geographic Society. Male bison can weigh more than 2,000 pounds and the creatures are among the most dangerous animals to visitors at North American national parks, attacking humans if provoked.
So instead of a live bison at games, a costume was quickly created for a student to wear as the Hoosiers mascot. That iteration of the IU Bison made just one appearance at the November 1965 game against Purdue.
"The costume was a thing of nightmares," said Kellams. "It was horrifying. It was awful."
IU finally had a mascot. Now, it needed a costume that didn't scare off fans.
Somebody from the university -- who the person was, Kellams said, nobody knows -- came up with an idea to reach out to the famous animator Walt Disney to ask if he would design a bison costume for the school.
"Disney himself was unable to design the bull because he was filling other personal obligations," the Indiana Daily Student reported in 1966, "so he recommended a Los Angeles firm responsible for many of his movie characters."
The IU Student Athletic Board purchased the new and improved bison costume, created by Disney's firm, in 1966 for $1,400 ($13,700 in 2025 dollars).
"And so the next Bison costume, which still wasn't fantastic, but it wasn't the stuff of nightmares, that was the next one," said Kellams. "And they had it for a couple of years."
By 1969, IU's bison mascot had vanished from campus. Why it happened is still a mystery.
A former IU cheerleader once told Kellams that the bison went away because the head of the costume was left on the tarmac when the football team was flying back to Bloomington from the Rose Bowl in 1968.
"I don't know if that was the case or not because other newspaper articles I've seen have said that it was in storage, so this is a missing piece of the tale," Kellams said. "It just kind of went away."
The bison mascot suits were never ideal, even the Disney-inspired creation. Both of them were heavy and hot. One had no arm holes and the other no eye holes. With the latter, IU cheerleaders had to lead the bison mascot on a leash around the field.
While the costumed mascot disappeared more than 50 years ago, references of the short-lived creature on the IU campus lived on.
A cartoon in the Sept. 24, 1970, edition of the Indiana Daily Student shows a bison on the field with the words: "He can only speak Greek, but he's a hell of a blocker."
An advertisement for the Indiana Memorial Union and its various offerings in 1974 featured the IU bison mascot wielding a sword and a beer.
And in November 1982, an ad in the Indiana Daily Student read "Watch out Boilermakers …Here come the Hoosiers!" The words were accompanied by an illustration of a massive bison pouring water from an oaken bucket onto the head of mascot Purdue Pete.
But beyond cartoons, ads and random references, the bison had disappeared as an official school mascot. And it stayed that way for more than 50 years -- until now.
The momentum behind the return of the bison as the official mascot of IU athletics is the strongest it's been since the costumed creature roamed the IU campus in the 1960s.
"Long live the bison," said Kimberly Truman, who was an IU student in 1966 and today is an outspoken advocate for bringing back the bison. "Too much time has passed. IU needs a mascot, and why not now?"
Follow IndyStar sports reporter Dana Benbow on X: @DanaBenbow. Reach her via email: dbenbow@
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Bring back the bison: Could IU's long-lost mascot make a return?
