What NAIA canine mascots are out there?
While college sports (and dog sports, and all sports generally) are currently canceled for the time being, they’ll eventually start back up again at some point. And when they do, their teams will take the field or court again as students and fans support their school. While we’ve covered the NCAA canine mascots before, it seems like a good time to look at the NAIA canine mascots.
Out of 248 NAIA (National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics) member schools in total, not that many use canine mascots, it turns out.
The NAIA was partially founded by Dr. James Naismith (the inventor of basketball) in 1937 as an organization of small colleges and universities, which today spans 21 conferences and several schools in Canada and the US Virgin Islands.
The Bulldogs are the most popular, as Concordia-Nebraska, Cumberland, Fisk, Jarvis Christian, McPherson, Montana-Western, Tennessee Wesleyan, Tugaloo, Union College and Wilberforce all use the nickname.
Cardinal Stritch in Milwaukee and Washington’s Walla Walla both use the straightforward Wolves, while Indiana East has the Red Wolves and Lourdes has the Gray Wolves. Loyola-New Orleans has a Wolfpack as well.
Two schools use the Coyotes as a mascot, those being the College of Idaho and Kansas Wesleyan.
Finally, USAO (the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma) uses the Drovers as a nickname, which is a kind of sheepherder. A man on a horse is the official logo, but Drover is likely to bring up the character of the same name from John Erickson’s Hank the Cowdog series of children’s books, which is why we’re including them in this list.
If you haven’t read those, Drover is the cowardly, spacey yet common-sensical sidekick to Hank, a Barney Fife-type hypochrondiac who often complains about an imaginary hurt leg.
So, there you have it – the complete list of NAIA canine mascots, plus one extra addition.