Baldwin the Eagle, an anthropomorphized bald eagle, is the mascot of the Boston College Eagles.
The nickname "Eagles" goes back to 1920 when Rev. Edward McLaughlin, unhappy at seeing a newspaper cartoon which represented Boston College as a cat after a track victory, wrote to the college newspaper The Heights:
Live birds-of-prey
The "Eagles" nickname stuck. Soon a pair of golden eagles from Texas and New Mexico were given to the college as gifts. However, one escaped and the other broke its beak trying. For the next four years, the official "mascot" was a stuffed golden eagle located in the athletic offices.
In 1961, another attempt was made at a live mascot when the college adopted a 10-month-old golden eagle named "Margo" (so named because the team colors are maroon and gold). Margo lived at the Franklin Park Zoo and was brought to all home games for several years until dying of a virus early in the 1966 season.
Gilded statue
Another notable incarnation of the Boston College Eagle is a gilded bronze eagle sculpture that diplomat Larz Anderson and Isabel Weld Perkins, his socialite heiress wife, brought back from Japan in the early 20th century. The eagle remained in Larz Anderson Park until 1954 when it was donated to Boston College and became synonymous with the BC Eagle. It now looks over Linden Lane.
See also
- List of U.S. college mascots
References
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