History of the Bulldogs

The Butler Bulldogs are the athletic teams that represent Butler University, located in Indianapolis, Indiana. The Bulldogs participate in 20 NCAA Division I intercollegiate sports. After leaving the Horizon League following the 2011–12 season, nearly all teams competed in the Atlantic 10 Conference. The football team is a founding member of the non-scholarship Football Championship Subdivision (FCS)-level Pioneer League. On March 20, 2013, the Butler administration announced that the school would join the Big East, and moved to the new league on July 1, 2013.

While the Fieldhouse provided a nationally acclaimed setting for Butler athletics, it was Paul D. "Tony" Hinkle, credited with inventing the orange basketball, who brought national recognition to the school as a coach and athletic administrator. He came to Butler in 1921 and remained with the University until his death in 1992. Hinkle served as a teacher, coach, and athletic administrator for nearly half a century and compiled more than 1,000 victories with the school's football, basketball and baseball teams. The Bulldogs have carried on the winning traditions set forth by Hinkle. In the past decade, Butler teams have captured 26 conference championships (in four different leagues). The Bulldogs have made appearances in NCAA National Championship Tournaments in men's and women's basketball, men's soccer, volleyball, men's cross country, lacrosse, and baseball. Butler won the James J. McCafferty trophy, awarded annually by the conference for all-sports excellence based on conference championship points, five times, including three straight from 1996–97 to 1998–99 and back-to-back years in 2001–02 and 2002–03.

College Sports Established
1919

Location
Indianapolis, Indiana

College Name
Butler University

Collegiate History
1973 - Present / NCAA Division 1
1921 - 1973 / University Division of the NCAA
1919 - 1921 / Athletic Association of the United States

Conference History
2013 - Present / Big East Conference
2012 – 2013 / Atlantic 10 Conference
1993 – 2012 / Horizon League
1978 – 1992 / Midwestern Collegiate Conference
1951 - 1977 / Indiana Collegiate Conference
1944 - 1950 / Mid-American Conference
1932 - 1943 / Missouri Valley Conference

Nickname
Bulldogs - Prior to 1919, Butler’s athletic teams were known as the “Christians,” but numerous losses in the 1919 football season caused Butler’s followers to grow weary of the nickname. During the week leading up to Butler’s game with the heated rival Franklin “Baptists,” Butler Collegian editor Alex Cavins and his staff, which included cartoonist George Dickson, decided something “hot” must be conceived for the school’s weekly pep session.

About that time, the mascot of a Butler fraternity – a bulldog named Shimmy (you couldn’t shake him), wandered into the Collegian office. An idea was born. The next school paper came out with a big Page One cartoon showing Shimmy the bulldog, labeled “Butler,” taking a bite out of the pants seat of a figure labeled John the Baptist. The caption was: “Bring on That Platter, Salome!”

NCAA Championships
Baseball 0

Men's Basketball 0

Women's Basketball 0

Football 0

Soccer 0