Estimated read time: Less than a minute
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
AMHERST, Mass. (AP) — Get ready to cheer for the Amherst College Mammoths.
The Massachusetts school Monday announced that its athletic teams will be known as the Mammoths after a yearlong selection process and vote that involved thousands of alumni, students and faculty.
The selection board said people who suggested mammoths noted they are "impressive," ''stupendous and monumental," and "near mythic."
Backers also noted the school's natural history museum houses a mammoth skeleton discovered by Amherst professor Frederick Brewster Loomis and brought to the college in 1925.
The process started in January 2016 when school trustees decided the school's unofficial nickname, Lord Jeffs, was inappropriate in part because the 18th century British Gen. Jeffery Amherst suggested giving smallpox-infected blankets to Native Americans.
The board initially received hundreds of sometimes whimsical and silly suggestions.
Copyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
