The complete list of NAIA feline mascots

While here at Dog O’Day we love the various canine mascots across the NCAA, NAIA and NJCAA college sports landscape, we also are big fans of cats, and there are quite a few feline mascots out there as well. So we’re going to look at them today, starting with the NAIA feline mascots.

The National Association for Intercollegiate Athletics began in 1940, evolving out of the NIT, which the basketball creator Dr James Naismith started in 1937.

It currently holds about 250 colleges universities in the US, Canada and the US Virgin Islands, and oversees baseball, basketball, competitive cheer, competitive dance, cross country, football, lacrosse (women’s), softball, swimming, tennis, volleyball and wrestling. While not officially recognized by the NAIA yet, some schools also play beach volleyball, men’s lacrosse, and women’s flag football and wrestling against each other.

There are 21 conferences scattered across the country, some of them football-only.

There are a lot of NAIA feline mascots out there.

So what are the most popular NAIA feline mascots?

Unlike with dogs, there are a lot of cats represented, with Tigers being the most popular, as 10 schools use that mascot. These are Campbellsville, Central Christian, Dakota Wesleyan, Doane, Edward Waters, Georgetown College, Olivet Nazarene, Paul Quinn, Stillman and Voorhees, while Brenau is home of the Golden Tigers.

In second place with eight schools represented are Lions, with  Bryan, Florida Memorial, Freed-Hardeman, Langston, Multnomah, Soka America, Southwestern Assembly of God, and Vanguard all using it, with Penn State-Schuylkill adding Nittany Lions due to the main Penn State campus being located in the Nittany Valley.

Next most popular is Cougars with seven schools using that mascot – Cleary, Columbia College (Mo), Indiana Kokomo, Mount Vernon Nazarene, St Francis, St Xavier and Spring Arbor.

Baker, Bethel, Culver-Stockton, Indiana Wesleyan and Wiley are all the rather generic Wildcats.

College of the Ozarks, Peru State and St Thomas all use the underrated Bobcats, with Cal-Merced as the Golden Bobcats.

Governors State, Houston-Victoria and Texas A&M-San Antonio make up a trio of Jaguars.

Finally, there are Panthers of both Philander Smith and York and the Lincoln College Lynx.

So that’s the list of NAIA feline mascots in college sports; is your favorite school part of the list? For more college sports news within the FanSided Network, see our sister sites Saturday Blitz and Busting Brackets for general college football and basketball coverage, respectively.