History
The battle cry was created in 1926 by a popular student athlete, John "Button" Salmon. Salmon was the student body president, as well as the starting quarterback for the Wildcat football team and the catcher for the Wildcat baseball team, and member of Sigma Nu fraternity.
The day after the first game of the 1926 football season, Salmon and two others were involved in an automobile accident, in which their vehicle flipped over in a ravine. Although Salmon's friends were not injured, Salmon suffered a severe spinal cord injury. In the aftermath of the accident, football coach Pop McKale visited him in the hospital every day. During McKale's last visit, Salmon's last message to his teammates was, "Closer...come closer...Tell them…no closer... tell the team to bear down." John Salmon died on October 18, 1926. Following Salmon's funeral, McKale reportedy told the team what he had said in a Las Cruces, N.M., locker room before a football game against the Aggies of New Mexico State, and U of A won a hard-fought victory, 7-0.
The following year, the University of Arizona student body decided that "Bear Down" would be the new slogan for all Wildcat athletic teams. That year, the Chain Gang, a junior honorary organization at the UA, held a dance in the newly-constructed university gymnasium to raise funds to paint the slogan on the roof of the building at coordinates 32°13′52″N 110°57′00″W / 32.231129°N 110.950115°W / 32.231129; -110.950115. The words are still featured on the roof of the gymnasium, now known as Bear Down Gym. In 1939, the Arizona state legislature issued a decree that "Bear Down" would be the exclusive property of The University of Arizona.
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