Rocky the Bull, the mascot for the University of South Florida, first made his debut in 1965. He is an Anthropomorphized Brahman Bull and his claim to fame is that he won the 2013 Capital One Mascot Challenge.
However, that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have a checkered past…
For starters? His school didn’t even want him!
Back in 1961 when USF was first trying to decide on a mascot, they considered quite a few options, ranging from Florida Chickens to the… am I getting this right? Desert Rats? OK, Florida…
The proverbial “seed” of the bull was planted in 1961, by two people that regularly inseminated Brahman’s themselves – Gerald Stack and Jack Boyd, who were both Brahman Cattle breeders and member of USF’s charter class.