University Archivist Noah Lasley works to acquire, arrange and describe official University of Tennessee at Chattanooga records and other valuable materials for documenting the University’s history and functions. His research interests include digital humanities, digital curation and archival instruction.
Lasley received a bachelor’s degree in history and a master’s in information science from UT Knoxville. Before joining UTC Special Collections in July 2016, he worked for several library units at UT Knoxville, including Modern Political Archives, Great Smoky Mountains Regional Project and Digital Production Area.
During “I Love UTC Week” from April 1-5, campus icon Scrappy flew by Special Collections and the display cases in the UTC Library’s Roth Grand Reading Room that Special Collections curates. The current exhibition, titled “‘Crowd-Energizing Mission’: A UTC Mascot Retrospective,” includes details and trivia sure to interest any Moc, and Scrappy was no exception.
Lasley shared remarks and documented the event.
Scrappy visits the UTC exhibition on the history of mascots. Photo by Angela Foster.
As University Archivist, my job is to make UTC records of enduring value available to researchers. One of the ways I do that is by adding context to topics like the history of University mascots through exhibitions.
However, Scrappy’s visit allowed me to share something beyond a chronology of dates and moments in University history. During Scrappy’s Special Collections flyby, I addressed the qualities that make our mascot unique—and went for broke with ornithological references in doing so.
Although Scrappy officially hatched in 1997, his plumage includes features saturated with the essence of school spirit dating back over a century—University colors, a victorious athletic legacy and the word “moc.” Each of these feathers is evident in the fight song lyrics composed by University Band Director Barry Jones in 1967—30 years before Scrappy’s arrival: “We know you can win if you will fight blue and gold Scrappy Mocs go — fight fight fight!”
Blue and gold have been the University’s colors for over 100 years. An early published history of the University describes how they were adopted “at a mass meeting of students and faculty” and worn with enthusiasm by spectators at sporting events in the early 1900s. Since then, they have appeared on the uniforms of athletes and cheerleaders and in campus branding efforts with unwavering consistency. Previous mascots also adopted blue and gold as part of their costumes, but none have done so with as much style as Scrappy.
“Scrappy” Moore, 1967, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga portrait photographs, UA-00-03-02-13-022. Courtesy of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Special Collections.
The “Scrappy Mocs” lyric in the 1967 fight song wasn’t a prophetic allusion to our current Scrappy. In fact, it was a reference to a contemporary campus fixture, Andrew Cecil Moore Jr. —better known as “Scrappy.”
Scrappy Moore came to the University as an assistant coach in 1927, was the head football coach from 1931 to 1967, and—after retiring from coaching—was director of athletics until 1970. During this remarkable career, he led the Mocs football team to 170 total victories. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1980.
Our current mascot Scrappy was named by a 17-member committee of varied campus constituencies. Athletics are one of the most significant influences in creating school spirit, and it is no surprise that the committee landed on the name Scrappy. In doing so, it established a historical connection with a distinguished coach who had become so synonymous with the University’s athletic prowess that he was written into the fight song itself.
What is a “Moc”? This nickname emerged initially as a reference to local landmark Moccasin Bend, a distinctive geographic feature a short distance away from campus where the Tennessee River makes a winding turn that very much resembles a foot or a shoe. Because of this, moccasin imagery was prevalent in campus branding and publications from the early 1900s well into the 1990s.
With the debut of Scrappy in 1997, the word “Moc” took on a new and better connotation—that of the mockingbird. The self-directed move away from moccasins and related Native American imagery was initiated by Chancellor Fred Obear in 1996. Local Native American groups, campus community members and Obear recognized that previous mascots were not compatible with what Obear defined as “UTC’s commitment to the dignity of all people and to their sense of inclusion in the broader society.”
Scrappy’s debut in the University Echo. Harmony Montgomery, “The Moccanooga-shuffle: It’s a Bird! It’s a train! It’s a mascot!” University Echo, 1997 January 23. Courtesy of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Special Collections.
To reorient, Obear organized a campus committee that solicited feedback and worked with a branding agency to finalize the design of Scrappy. The result was a shift to “Moc,” short for mockingbird, which allowed UTC to retain an essential part of its identity in the form of the word itself.
By selecting the Tennessee state bird as a new mascot, the University strengthened its identity as part of the statewide UT System and connected to an icon that already enjoyed over a half-century of widespread regional recognition—having been adopted as the state bird in 1933. Additionally, mockingbirds are fiercely protective of their territory and intelligent in their mimicry of so many other bird species—which are inherently positive attributes for a school that prides itself on academic and athletic excellence.
Finally, the UTC public relations coordinator at the time of Scrappy’s debut noted that selecting a mockingbird was a deliberate effort to “tie the school more closely with the community.” Specifically, Scrappy initially appeared with branding imagery that included him wearing the striped blue and white cap commonly associated with locomotive engineers, and was frequently depicted riding on a train—a direct nod to Chattanooga’s status as home of the Choo-Choo popularized by the Glenn Miller Orchestra’s gold record single and as a nexus for Southern railroads. To further solidify this connection, lyrics to the fight song were updated in 1997 by a UTC alumnus to include, among other things, a line that says, “Roll on, Chattanooga, Ride the rails to victory!”
A side-by-side of the 1967 and 1997 Fight Song lyrics. Chanda Milliron, “New Lyrics to Fight song to be sung at Finley Game,” University Echo, 1997 October 16. Courtesy of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Special Collections.
Scrappy’s 1997 arrival fortuitously coincided with an amazing run by the UTC men’s basketball team in that year’s NCAA tournament, where they made it to the Sweet 16, defeating No. 3 seed University of Georgia and No. 6 seed Illinois. This momentum launched Scrappy’s career as the “crowd-energizer-in-chief,” the role he still plays today.
An article examining the widespread appeal of mascots in the United States observed that “a good mascot can tell the story of a team’s culture, uniting the fandom, the players and the rest of the world at large.” In a fusion of longstanding elements of school and state identity—blue and gold, the legacy of Scrappy Moore, and the mockingbird—Scrappy does this job admirably for UTC. He represents the unique blend of courage, strength and determination that is the aspiration of all associated with the University.
I want to close with a verse from the alma mater. Written in the early 1900s by Elizabeth Hullihen, a member of the student body, the song may be our oldest active campus tradition, and the following lyrics serve nicely as a charge for Scrappy and all Mocs:
Loyally, we bear her standards
Blazon’d gold and blue;
Forward, upward, ever onward,
Forth to dare and do.
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If you want to learn more about the history of University mascots, the “‘Crowd-Energizing Mission’: A UTC Mascot Retrospective” exhibition will be on display through the end of the summer semester.
Special thanks to the following individuals: Special Collections colleagues Molly Copeland and Carolyn Runyon for their feedback and suggestions during the development of the exhibition materials, Assessment and Outreach Librarian Chantelle Swaren and UTC Library Student Assistant Wyn Seay for assistance with exhibition panel design and promotion of Scrappy’s appearance during “I Love UTC Week,” University Photographer Angela Foster for photographing the event, Head Coach of the Mocs Spirit Squad Ashli Adams Brown for coordinating Scrappy’s schedule, and Scrappy for the crowd-energizing appearance.
Photo gallery by Angela Foster
University Archivist Noah Lasley and Scrappy sharing mascot history with event attendees on April 3, 2024, in the UTC Library.
