(This text originally appeared at
http://www.libraries.psu.edu/crsweb/speccol/genhist.htm#lion
but as of Mar/2003 I discovered that link is broken).
The athletic symbol of the Pennsylvania State University is the North American
felis concolor, variously known as the mountain lion, cougar, puma, or
panther. The large tawny-colored cat became extinct in this region a quarter
of a century after the University was founded in 1855.
Penn State is located in the broad Nittany Valley near Mount Nittany, terminal
point of a range also called Nittanya name said to be derived from Indian
words meaning a protective barrier against the elements. While the name itself
can be seen on W. Sculls map of Pennsylvania, dated 1770, in approximately the
correct place, regional folklore connects the name Nittany or Nita-Nee with
two Indian maidens. The mythological Nita-Nee was a princess whose people
revered her for leading them into the fertile central Pennsylvania valley,
safe from enemy tribes. When she died, the mountain miraculously arose
overnight at the burial site, and the name thus was given to the geographical
landmarks.
Nita-Nee became a favored name for Indian girls, one of whom figures in
another popular legend. She fell in love with a white trader who was forced to
flee by her seven brothers. They drove him into a nearby cavern (Penns Cave),
where he died, crying out for his lost Nita-Nee. We now recognize that the
legends of the Indian maidens were the invention of author and publisher Henry
W. Shoemaker; the story of Nita-Nee and her lover Malachi Boyer first
appeared in print in 1903. Shoemaker then attributed the tale to an aged
Seneca Indian named Isaac Steele. He later admitted the various Indian names
were purely fictitious.
Adoption of the Nittany Lion as Penn States athletic symbol was an idea of
Harrison D. Joe Mason '07. At Princeton in 1904, he and other members of
Penn State's varsity baseball team were shown two Bengal tigers as an
indication of the merciless treatment they would encounter in the game. Mason
replied with an instant fabrication of the Penn State Nittany Mountain Lion
king of the beasts who would overcome even the Tiger. The team defeated
Princeton and Mason persevered with his idea.
Confusion with the African Lion is was common until the symbol was officially
adopted when the class of 1940 presented its gift of a sculptured Nittany
mountain lion in 1942. The work of noted sculptor Heinz Warneke, the crouching
powerful figure is now the popular Nittany Lion Shrine, located at Penn
State's University Park campus on a grassy mound amid tall trees near
Recreation Building.