It’s football season! Once again, excited fans of the Texas Longhorns will pack home games at the 100,000+ capacity Darrell K Royal–Texas Memorial Stadium, full of anticipation of a successful season. And once again, standing stoically on the sidelines in the middle of all the hubbub, will be UT’s venerable mascot, the live Texas Longhorn himself … Bevo!
Interestingly enough, the original mascot of the University of Texas wasn’t actually a longhorn—it was an American Pit Bull Terrier named “Pig.” The Texas Terriers, really?! But in 1916, that changed when a UT alumnus named Stephen Pinckney collected about $125 from other alumni to buy and ship a Texas longhorn steer from a ranch in the Panhandle to Austin. This new mascot was given the name “Bo.”
As to how Bo became Bevo, the story is that after UT defeated the arch-rival Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas (later to become Texas A&M) by the score of 21-7 on Thanksgiving Day in 1916, the editor of UT’s campus magazine declared: “His name is Bevo, and long may he reign!” Where the editor actually got the name is disputed, and he died before revealing his inspiration. Some claim that it came from a newly popular non-alcoholic, “near beer” beverage introduced in 1916 by Anheuser-Busch called Bevo. Others say that the name came from a slang term for steer that was intended to become beef: “beeve” with the “o” added as part of common jargon of the era (e.g., “neato”), hence “Bevo.”
One legend that has been debunked is that the name Bevo came as the result of a prank pulled by A&M students, who in February 1917 broke into the stockyard where Bevo was kept and branded his side with “13-0,” which had been the score of the 1915 football game A&M had won against UT. Afterward, UT students then altered the brand to make it read “BEVO” instead. Since Bevo had been used in print since November 1916, the A&M stunt could not have led to the creation of the name, but it certainly helped publicize it.
In total, 15 Bevos have stood patiently watching at the Longhorns at all home and many away football games. Since 1945, Bevo has been entrusted to the Silver Spurs, an honorary organization of undergraduate students, and he rides in his own, customized livestock trailer. Of course, handling a live 1600-pound steer is no small task, and there have been a few misadventures over the years, including when Bevo III escaped and ran loose on campus for two days. But for the better part of Bevo’s 103 years at the UT mascot, he has placidly watched the Longhorns’ gridiron battles from his spot behind the south end zone. Hook ‘em!