March 11, 1910 – The front page of The Daily Iowan announces the demise of SUI mascot – Burch the Bear.
“The last chapter in the history of Burch, Iowa’s ill-fated mascot, has been written. Wednesday afternoon men who had been blasting ice some distance above Coralville noticed a dark and almost submerged object floating slowly down with the masses of dislodged ice. Its peculiar appearance caused them to mount upon the bridge and push it into the shallow water, where it could be reached from the shore. Here it was at once discovered that the object was a full-grown black bear, without doubt Burch.”
Burch was an American black bear cub, imported from Wisconsin to serve as the mascot for the Iowa Hawkeyes football team in 1908. The team grew fond of Burch, taking him on the road with them, wrestling playfully with the bear and hoping he would bring them good luck as he prowled the sidelines of opponents’ fields across the Midwest. On the first road trip of the season (October 16-18), the Hawkeyes traveled to Columbia to play the Missouri Tigers, with Burch coming along for the ride.
READ MORE ABOUT THIS IOWA STORY HERE
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