Athletics

CONNECTICUT COLLEGE CAMELS

How the did the camel become the school mascot?

The following is the work of Peggy Ford '73 and Catherine Adams Phinizy '71 who have written about the origin of the camel mascot.

When Connecticut College became a coed institution in 1969, the men who arrived on campus asked the college for help in organizing a basketball team. Mike Shinault, head of the college's print shop and mail room, was the sole volunteer for the job of coach.

Southern drawlin' Shinault, an ex-Navy man who had coached several service basketball teams, threw himself into the project with his customary energy and sardonic humor. Searching for an appropriate mascot for the team, he remembered seeing a Pakistani team while in the navy. And so into a sports world overpopulated by Wolves, Bears, and Eagles came the Camels. The name was different.

And so were they.

"We had a lot of fans in those days," said Shinault of the early years. "We were so funny that people would come just to see what we were gonna do."

It was in those first years of coeducation that from the grandstands, across the basketball courts of Crozier-Williams Connecticut College students first let out the all-college cry of 'Huuuuuuuuuuuump'.

The cry continued into the 1980s at hockey games starting very low as a bass rumble and rising in pitch with each "u" exploding finally in a explosive "p".

Throughout the years, the camel mascot has received its share of criticism. Some students have considered it an unaggressive animal, somewhat ugly animal identified with plodding.

But the camel serves as the symbol of endurance and fortitude in the playing arena. It has been dubbed the "ship of the desert" for its strength and patience as a beast of burden and its ability to adapt to and survive in various environments.