University of Texas: Where did the mascot name Bevo come from?

Many old traditions were not of particular note the first time they occurred, so there wasn't a detail of historians on hand to fully document who did what or who uttered some famous phrase the first time.  Such is the case with Bevo, but I believe I have cobbled together a timeline that is fairly accurate.  Of course, we're always open to the feedback of someone with better information.

The date was November 30, 1916.  In Austin, two bitter rivals took the field - the University of Texas and Texas A&M.  The scale of this rivalry really cannot be understated and will surely lead to quite a few posts here in the future.  Anyhow, the Thanksgiving Day game was the first matchup of the two schools in Austin since 1909 and it had been many years since the school had presented a live mascot on its sideline.  To provide that extra spark, former Texas football manager Stephen Pinckney raised $124 to purchase the steer and have it transported to the campus from West Texas.  It must have done the trick, because the Longhorns were victorious in their first game with the bovine on the sidelines.  These details are rather established.  We know when the steer showed up.  We know who bought him.  But that name - when did they start calling him that name?  And why?  The rest of the story may be as much legend as fact, but the story has stuck around for almost a hundred years and is certainly plausible.

The story goes that a group of "Fightin' Aggies" commandeered the steer not long after his arrival in Austin.  We can only assume that it was after the steer's Thanksgiving Day unveiling, but the story doesn't specify.  As legend has it, before returning the animal the Aggies branded the steer with the indelible digits "13 - 0" which was the score of the Aggie victory over the Longhorns in the 1915 contest in College Station.  What do you do when you've spent what would be roughly $2500 in today's dollars to buy an animal as a showpiece only to have a point of humiliation forever scarred on its backside?  Well, you take out your own branding iron and turn the "13" into a "B", the "-" into an "E" and try as hard as you can to squeeze a "V" in their before the "O".  BEVO.  Given the fact that there was a popular slightly-alcoholic beer named "Bevo" that went into production in 1916 when alcoholic beverages became prohibited by the US Military ahead of the nationwide prohibition in 1919, the name could at worst be a nod to a popular libation than a reminder of an Aggie victory.

When given lemons, make lemonade...or Bevo.

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