How the Spartans got their name

A belated congratulations to the Michigan State University football team for winning the 2014 Rose Bowl! In honor of their victory, here's a post that describes how the school's nickname became the "Spartans."

This guy.


If it weren’t for a sneaky sports editor named George Alderton, Michigan State fans would be heading to Stater Stadium on crisp fall weekends to cheer on the Stater football team. Wearing Stater sweatshirts, they would fill the stands and pull Stater blankets around their wind-whipped shoulders. Maybe they would applaud a school mascot named Statey as he flexed his muscles and danced along to the Stater fight song.

For helping prevent this craziness, I think we can agree that Alderton deserves a big “thank you."

The story behind MSU’s almost-nickname begins in 1925, when Michigan Agricultural College changed its name to Michigan State College (MSC). By the mid-1920s, the school was offering degrees in areas other than agriculture, so along with its new name, school officials wanted a new nickname, something that would replace its current moniker, the Aggies. The Lansing State Journal, the local newspaper, held a contest to solicit ideas. Out of several entries, a winner emerged. This name, school officials hoped, would embody the school’s dynamic spirit and propel MSC from its agricultural roots into a world that valued strength and achievement.

That name was….the Staters.

That’s right, the school’s sports teams and students would be known as the Michigan Staters.

Alderton, the State Journal’s sports editor, had the same reaction to “the Staters” that you’re probably having right now. He figured the contest must have elicited at least a few names that were more exciting (and headline-friendly) than the word “state” with an “r” on the end, so he asked to see the losing entries. Among them, he found a slip of paper bearing the term “Spartans.” Alderton thought the name was a big improvement, and started using it instead of “Staters” in State Journal sports stories. Eventually, Dale Stafford, the sports reporter from Lansing Capital News, a rival newspaper, started referring to MSC athletes as “Spartans” in his stories, as did reporters from the college’s student publication. The name continued to spread, and from that point on, Michigan State’s student body and athletes have been known as the Spartans.

 

For more information:

Unfortunately, the new nickname led to this thing, but that's the subject for an entirely different post.

The true story behind the Mayo Hall haunting

If the stories are to be believed, a ghostly presence stalks Mayo Hall, a dormitory in the West Circle complex on the north side of Michigan State University. For decades, students who lived in the Tudor-style building have reported eerie goings on—strange noises, lights that turn on and off, a piano that plays by itself. Some residents have seen the apparition of a woman, while others report being watched by the piercing eyes of the dorm’s namesake, Mary Mayo, as she stares at them from a portrait on the first floor.

Portrait of Mary Mayo. Okay, I'll admit I'd be a little
freaked out if I thought that she was watching me.

Whether or not Mayo Hall is home to a ghost may be up for debate, but the fact remains that several of the rumors that led to Mayo Hall’s reputation as the most haunted building at Michigan State are simply not true. Believers insist that it’s Mayo’s ghost that haunts the building, and that she either killed herself or was murdered. Some versions of the story hold that she actually died in Mayo Hall itself. The truth is that Mary Mayo died in 1903 after an illness, and did so a full 28 years before the residence hall bearing her name was even built. That’s not to say that her ghost doesn’t haunt the building. However, it does beg the question: Why, if Mary Mayo is the hall’s ghostly resident, would she spend her afterlife scaring students in a building that, when she died, didn’t even exist?

 

Mayo Hall

 

Nothing in Mayo’s background indicates that she would become what many believe is Michigan State’s most notorious specter. Born in 1845 in Battle Creek, she married husband Perry in 1865, and raised two children, a son named Nelson and a daughter named Nellie. Mayo was a teacher, and believed that women should have access to a quality college education. As a member of the Grange, a nationwide social and advocacy group that promoted the interests of rural residents, she spoke about the need to create women’s programs in universities, including Michigan State (which at the time was called State Agricultural College). Her wish came true in 1896 when SAC created a women’s curriculum. Mayo died a few years later, in 1903, and is buried in Austin Cemetery in Calhoun County’s Convis Township.

Her earthly remains may rest in southwest Michigan, but apparently many people believe that Mayo’s spirit traveled sixty miles north to spend eternity in a Michigan State dormitory. Reports of hauntings have persisted since Mayo Hall opened as a woman’s residence hall in 1931. The rumors passed from one class to another, and became even creepier when students began talking about a “red room” on the building’s fourth floor, where unknown people were said to have conducted satanic rituals. Spirits are mysterious creatures, so the question of whether or not Mayo Hall is haunted may never be answered. However, we do know that Mary Mayo was a groundbreaking crusader for the rights of women in academia, and it’s this achievement—not the possibility that she wreaks ghostly havoc in Mayo Hall—that should be her real legacy.

U of M students had a "Hot Time" before they were "Victors"

This post pains my green-and-white bleeding heart, but Michigan 101 covers the entire state, and does not discriminate based on college loyalties, so I've decided to write about...gulp...The University of Michigan.

(See, I even capitalized the word "The".)

U of M's fight song, "The Victors" is one of the best-known anthems in college sports. John Philip Sousa, master of the march, even deemed it the greatest fight song ever. But "The Victors" didn't become the university's official theme until several years after it was written in 1898. What song motivated students' hearts and minds before then?

That would be, "A Hot Time in the Old Town."

 

The song was a popular ragtime tune written in 1896. It was frequently played by the United States military, whose version appears in the clip below.

That rendition is from 1917, and I have a feeling it more closely mirrors the song as played by
U of M than does the following version from blues singer Bessie Smith, which was recorded in 1927, after the ragtime era had ended (but which I like better than the military version).

Modern college sports fans have likely heard the song at University of Wisconsin sporting events, as the university's marching band plays it during basketball and hockey games, as well as after touchdowns during football games. (So it's likely that U of M football fans won't want to hear their former school song played anymore, at least during games against Wisconsin.) Other schools, such as Texas A&M and Eastern Illinois University, also play "Hot Time," in conjunction with their fight songs.

Eventually, "The Victors" assumed its status as U of M's fight song, and "Hot Time" has pretty much been forgotten, but I think it's a catchy tune in its own right.

Whew, okay, I got through that post just fine. And I'm actually not feeling bad about it. (Though I promise an MSU post will be coming soon!)