Goldy Gopher is the mascot for the University of Minnesota and the associated sports teams, known as the Golden Gophers, as well as a four-time UCA Mascot National Champion (2011, 2013, 2017, and 2018).During the year, Goldy makes over 1000 appearances and is at virtually all home games for University teams, usually wearing the appropriate sporting attire. The mascot is based on the thirteen-lined ground squirrel, colloquially referred to as a “gopher” in Minnesota.
Origins[]
Minnesota became known as the "Gopher State" in 1857, the result of a political cartoon ridiculing the $5 million Railroad Loan which helped open up the West. The cartoon portrayed shifty railroad barons as striped gophers pulling a railroad car carrying the Territorial Legislature toward the "Slough of Despond". The first U of M yearbook bearing the name "Gopher Annual" appeared in 1887.
Minnesota's athletic teams became widely known as the "Gophers" by the 1920s, but it was not until 1934 that Halsey Hall, great Minnesota sportswriter and broadcaster, dubbed Bernie Bierman's all-gold uniformed team "The Golden Gophers". Bierman had chosen the gold color because the football blended in with the uniforms.
The embodiment of the Gopher mascot came to life in 1952 when University of Minnesota assistant bandmaster Jerome Glass bought a fuzzy wool gopher suit with a papier-mâché head and asked one of the band members to climb into it. "Goldy" Gopher (the first name seems to have appeared sometime in the 1960s) became a fixture within the University of Minnesota Marching Band and Pep Band, as each year a band member was chosen to don the suit for that season. Wherever these two bands performed, Goldy was there to glad-hand with the crowd, hug the little kids, and torment the cheerleaders.
During the early 1960s, Goldy was written into the football pre-game and halftime shows with a specific place to be. Limited visibility from within the suit made it difficult to see out, and any of the suit's wearers with glasses would fog up while trying to peer out the mouth hole, as the eyeholes were useless. One benefit during the cold games at Memorial Stadium in November was that Goldy Gopher was one of the few fans that stayed warm.