The Early Years
In 1893 a live goat named El Cid made his debut as a mascot at the fourth Army–Navy Game. El Cid was a gift to the Brigade of Midshipmen from officers of the USS New York. The goat helped Navy win 6-3 over Army that year, so he was adopted as part of the team.
There were other mascots in those years, including a gorilla - the very first mascot, two cats, a bulldog, and a carrier pigeon. However, the goat has served without interruption since 1904.
In the early 1900s the beloved mascot was finally given a name. On the return trip to the Naval Academy after Annapolis' triumph over West Point, the goat was led on a victory lap through the train and did not leave the midshipmen until they reached Baltimore.
It was then that the goat was given the name "Bill", which was the name of a pet goat kept by Commander Colby M. Chester, Commandant of Midshipmen, from 1891-1894.
The tradition continued during World War II.
Read more about this topic: Bill The Goat
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or years:
“Here is this vast, savage, howling mother of ours, Nature, lying all around, with such beauty, and such affection for her children, as the leopard; and yet we are so early weaned from her breast to society, to that culture which is exclusively an interaction of man on man,—a sort of breeding in and in, which produces at most a merely English nobility, a civilization destined to have a speedy limit.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“What will our children remember of us, ten, fifteen years from now? The mobile we bought or didn’t buy? Or the tone in our voices, the look in our eyes, the enthusiasm for life—and for them—that we felt? They, and we, will remember the spirit of things, not the letter. Those memories will go so deep that no one could measure it, capture it, bronze it, or put it in a scrapbook.”
—Sonia Taitz (20th century)