The Tiger mascot takes a well-deserved break.
The Tiger emerged as a symbol of Princeton in the late 1800s, most likely due to the growing use of orange and black as the school's colors. Football players of the early 1880s wearing broad orange and black stripes on their jerseys were dubbed "tigers" by sportswriters of the time, and "tiger" was also used as a rallying word in the college cheer.
According to Alexander Leitch in "A Princeton Companion," in 1923, a live tiger who had been captured in India by the father of a football player, Albert F. Howard '25, was brought to Princeton as a mascot, but was donated to a zoo after only a few weeks.
Since World War II, the tiger mascot as we know it today -- an undergraduate clad in a tiger suit -- has regularly cavorted at football games and other Princeton events.
Photo courtesy of Princeton University Archives