Most of the time, college sports teams name themselves something that evokes strength, virility, or athletic prowess — Lions, Knights, Bears, Vikings, Panthers, and whatnot.
But some teams go in the opposite direction…
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The Banana Slugs — The University of California at Santa Cruz. Adopted when students rebelled over the chancellor’s choice, “The Sea Lions.”
Sammy the Slug.
The Fighting Pickles — University of North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem.
The Fighting Blue Hens — University of Delaware, Newark.
The Dirtbags — California State University – Long Beach. Men’s baseball team only.
The Fighting Artichokes — Scottsdale Community College, Scottsdale, Arizona.
Arti the Artichoke.
The Trolls — Trinity Christian College, Palos Heights, Illinois.
The Geoducks — Evergreen State College, Olympia, Washington. Pronounced “gooey-ducks.” Refers to the world’s largest burrowing clam. Their fight song: “Siphon high, squirt it out, swivel all about, let it all hang out!”
The Evergreen State Gooey-duck.
The Student Princes — Heidelberg University, Tiffin, Ohio. Very Germanic.
The Jumbos — Tufts University, Medford/Somerville, Massachusetts. Named after P. T. Barnum’s star circus elephant. Barnum gave Tufts a lot of money.
The Lemmings — Bryant & Stratton College, Cleveland, Ohio.
The Fire Ants — University of South Carolina Sumter. Ouch.
The Fighting Okra — Delta State University, Cleveland, Mississippi. Formerly “The Statesmen.”
The Fighting Okra.
The Stanford Tree — Unofficial mascot of Stanford University in Stanford, California. The actual team name is “The Cardinal” — the color red, not the bird. That’s too abstract for the student body, so they ignore it and have adopted a redwood tree.
The Tree.
The Hustling Quakers — Earlham College, Richmond, Indiana.
The Gorloks — Webster University, Webster Groves, Missouri. Named for the intersection of Gore and Lockwood Avenues on the university campus. The Gorlok mascot you see dancing on the sideline has the paws of a cheetah, the horns of a buffalo, and the face of a St. Bernard.
The Fighting Camels — Campbell University, Buies Creek, North Carolina. The team mascot is Gaylord the Camel. The women’s teams are, of course, the Lady Camels.
The Flying Fleet — Erskine College, Due West, South Carolina. (See Comments for details.)
The Eutectics — St. Louis College of Pharmacy, St. Louis, Missouri. Eutectics is a chemistry term relating to the solidification of alloys, which I don’t understand at all. The team mascot is Morty McPestle, a werewolf in a lab coat. Morty isn’t a wimpy mascot like okra and lemmings, but he seems to belong on this list.
Morty McPestle.
Mr. Write's Page 
Great article on athletic mascots.. one correction though.. it should be Erskine College Flying Fleet..not Feet.. here is the history
Flying Fleet . . . a Unique Mascot
Erskine folks are often asked, “What is a Flying Fleet?” The story behind the answer reveals some of the history of our athletic program. The early Erskine teams in baseball, football, and tennis needed a team name and chose the name “Seceders,” not because of the state of South Carolina’s famous decision to secede from the Union, but because the name acknowledged Erskine’s relationship to the Associate “Seceder” Presbyterian Church in Scotland. The 1917 “Seceder” football team earned Erskine a reputation as innovative, mainly because of the team’s liberal use of the forward pass. That season saw Jake Todd catch a 50-yard touchdown pass to lead Erskine to defeat South Carolina 14-13.
Twelve years later, in 1929, Todd would employ a wide-open passing attack as head coach that led the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association in scoring. During that 1929 season, in a game at Furman, Todd’s passing attack so impressed Greenville News sportswriter Carter “Scoop” Latimer that he labeled Erskine teams “The Flying Fleet.” The name struck a cord with the Erskine student body, and that fall they voted to have the nickname replace “Seceders” as the team name.
Erskine enjoys the distinction of being the only college in the country known as “The Flying Fleet.”
Thanks for the correction. “Fleet” makes more sense than “feet,” for sure. I will correct the article.