Before the Phoenix, Elon sports were represented by the Fightin’ Christians, a mascot that has evolved with the university since the 1920s. Now, the Phoenix celebrates 21 years as Elon’s mascot.
In the early 1920s, the nickname “the Fightin’ Christians” first attached itself to Elon College. At the time, Elon was still a Christian, mostly local institution whose student body consisted largely of North Carolina and Virginia residents.
Over the next 80 years, the school retained this identity, introducing its own formal mascot, the “Fightin’ Christian,” sometime in the late 1970s.
Since 1956, the Board of Trustees have not been required to be members of the United Church of Christ. Required Chapel attendance was eliminated in the 1960s, untying Elon from its status as a singularly Christian institution.
Former Elon President Leo Lambert, after officially becoming the eighth president of Elon on January 1, 1999, proposed a daunting project: replacing the Fightin’ Christian.
The community felt affection for its old mascot, but Lambert decided the change was necessary after a 1999 men’s basketball game.
“Not everybody understood Elon was founded by the Christian church, and we were the Fightin’ Christians. It worked locally, but it did not work nationally. People laughed at it. That’s not what you want to get out of your mascot — derisive laughter,” Lambert said to a Medium reporter.
Selected from more than 125 names suggested by members of the Elon community, the Phoenix won because of its ties to fires, rebirth and oak trees.
The Phoenix was officially announced on May 9, 2000, through the hatching of an egg. In his article for the News and Record, Rob Daniels described the event.
“The egg cracked open, with plumes of white smoke pouring upward,” Daniels wrote. “A large banner and two side banners unfurled, revealing Elon's new maroon, gold, white and black Phoenix logo.”
It would be five months until the Phoenix mascot was fully introduced at Elon.
“It was homecoming of 2000, and our football team was playing Liberty in the last game of Burlington Memorial stadium, or the last Elon game at Burlington Memorial stadium,” said Don Scott, assistant athletic director of marketing & fan engagement. “That's when the actual mascot was introduced to the crowd, so he was born on Nov. 4.”
This past Thursday, Nov. 4, marked the Phoenix's 21 birthday, evoking odd feelings for some alumni.
“I was the mascot and you weren't born?” said Brad Caldwell, Elon’s first Phoenix mascot, in an interview with a 20 year old student. “That's insane.”
Despite its many faces, the responsibilities of Elon University’s mascot still remain the same.
“You'll see 3 year old kids of alums that are having their first interaction with Elon University, and they'll go up to the Phoenix, and give the Phoenix a hug, and get their picture taken with them. We'll have 80 year old people that are celebrating their 55th reunion, and they'll be taking their picture with the mascot,” Scott said. “A mascot binds us all together, to our special identity that we all have as Elon people.”