by butlerguy03 » Wed Feb 18, 2015 9:28 pm
The easiest way is to just copy and paste Wikipedia:
Butler University was founded as North Western Christian by Ovid Butler in 1855. He choose "Christians" as the school mascot. Sometime after the school had been rename in honor of its founder, Butler was suffering a poor football season in 1919. As losses mounted, people grew wary of the "Christians" nickname. Before a big game against the rival Franklin "Baptists", the Butler Collegian was trying to conceive of a way to fire people up when "Shimmy", a bulldog owned by one of the fraternities, wandered into their office. Shimmy inspired cartoonist George Dickson to draw a bulldog labeled "Butler" taking a bite out of John The Baptist. Butler lost the game, but the nickname "Bulldogs" stuck.
Eventually, the bulldog was selected as the official mascot of the university. For many years, Butler had unofficial live bulldog mascots that kept by various fraternities. In 2000, Butler Blue became the school's first official live mascot. To date, there have been three dogs to carry the name "Blue", the university's primary color.
Butler University '03