Soon after the University of Missouri’s football team was formed in 1890, the athletic committee adopted the nickname “Tiger” from a group of local Civil War militia called the Missouri Tigers. Originally there were two tiger mascots, a male and a female, but neither had a specific identity. In 1984 a contest was held to name the mascot, and a student submitted the winning entry—Truman, after Missouri-born US President Harry S. Truman.