A Brief History of the Nevada Mascot
The Nevada Wolf Pack, one of only two teams nationally to use the designation (North Carolina State is the other, though they use Wolfpack as one word while Nevada uses two words with a capital 'P'), has been using the Wolf Pack designation since at least the early 1920s.
Nevada's first athletic teams in the late 1890s and early 1900s were referred to as the Sagebrushers or even the Sage Hens after Nevada's state flowering plant, the sagebrush. There are references in print to the 'Sage Warriors', although none of these names were the official mascot of Nevada's athletic teams.
The Sierra Nevada mountains, located immediately to the west of Reno and prominent on the city's skyline, were and still are the home to numerous wild wolves. Residents and university students were familiar with the animal.
In the 1921-22 athletic season, a local writer described the spirited play of a Nevada team as a 'pack of wolves'. The name stuck and soon almost every reference to the athletic teams was the Nevada Wolves. In 1923, the students officially designated 'Wolves' as the school's mascot.
Since all teams are a group of players, the word pack followed quickly. In 1928-29, the Nevada student handbook referred to the athletic teams as Wolf Pack and two school songs were adopted, entitled 'The Wolf Pack' and 'Here Comes the Wolf Pack'.
The two 'wolf packs' in intercollegiate athletics have met only once. North Carolina State and Nevada were paired in the first round of the 1985 NCAA Basketball Tournament in Albuquerque, N.M. North Carolina State won, 65-56.
Source: University of Nevada (link).
