California Golden Bears - School Colors and Mascot

School Colors and Mascot

The official colors of the University of California are Yale Blue and California Gold and have been since 1875. Blue was chosen because of the ocean and California's 840 mile long coastline, the particular shade of blue (Yale Blue) was chosen because many of the university's founders attended Yale University. Gold was chosen to represent the gold rush that has populated the state in the 1840s and 1850s. The shade of gold varies from a more metallic gold on the university seal, and a yellow-gold (also known as California Gold) that is in use by the athletic department. Because of the university's use of blue and gold, the state of California's de facto colors were blue and gold from around 1913 to 1951 and became the official state colors in 1951.

The bear has been a symbol of the state of California dating back to its early days as the California Republic; the state flag displays the image of a bear. The bear, therefore, was seen as a fitting mascot for the University of California. One of the first times the bear was used as a symbol of the university was in 1895 when the California track team went east to compete against the national powers of Princeton, Yale, Pennsylvania, and Chicago. The track team brought along with them a blue banner with an outline of a bear in gold, and it is said that the banner gave the team luck because the upstart team from California ended up winning the meet. The events that took place inspired Charles Mills Gayley to write the song "The Golden Bear", which is currently the oldest song in the University of California Marching Band's repertoire. Since that time, the athletic teams of the University of California have officially been known as the Golden Bears. In the early twentieth century, while the teams were officially the "California Golden Bears", nicknames like Grizzlies, Ursae, Bruins, and just Bears were common. The use of "Grizzlies" died down because of the then-conference opponent Montana Grizzlies, and Bruins ceased to be used to describe Cal athletic teams when the southern branch of the university (now UCLA) adopted the Bruin as their mascot. Originally, the university would have live bear cubs on the field to serve as the mascot of the university, however, that proved to be quite dangerous and after the 1941 season, Oski, Cal's mascot to this day, made his debut.