Before there were Jacksonville University Dolphins, there were Jacksonville Junior College Green Dolphins. It was 1947, and Jacksonville Junior College had just established a basketball team when it hosted a contest to stir up school spirit and give the team an identity. Students and community members submitted dozens of suggestions, including Green Raiders, Buccaneers, Juggernauts and Green Dragons, but on Dec. 12, 1947, the winner was announced: Green Dolphins. The name was later shortened to Dolphins, and it stuck.
Nearly 80 years later, JU teams have won conference championships and national titles, while Dolphin student-athletes have gone on to compete in the NBA, MLB, the Olympics and more.
The choice fit the University perfectly. JU’s campus sits along the St. Johns River, where dolphins are seen swimming daily. Intelligent, fast and sleek, the dolphin also seemed to reflect the kind of institution JU was building. Today, JU is one of only five colleges or universities in the country to claim the dolphin as its mascot. It can also say it was the first.
For more than two decades after adopting the nickname, however, the JU Dolphins had only a name without a mascot. That changed in 1970, when the University made one of the most remarkable runs in college basketball history, reaching the NCAA championship game. To mark the moment, JU adopted Nellie, a bottlenose dolphin who had lived at Marineland Dolphin Adventure, just south of St. Augustine, since her birth there on Feb. 27, 1953.
For decades, Nellie performed five-minute sports routines for Marineland crowds before retiring from performances in the mid-1980s. She charmed generations of visitors, inspired JU marine science students and became a living symbol of the University’s connection to the natural world.
Her relationship with JU extended beyond symbolism. In 2008, Nellie received an honorary master’s degree in marine science. In 2013, she received an honorary doctorate in health sciences and longevity at her 60th birthday celebration.
At her peak, Nellie was the oldest of 36 live animal mascots across NCAA Division I and I-AA programs. Nellie passed away in the spring of 2014 at 61 years old, the oldest dolphin in human care on record. Today, two bronze dolphin statues, Duncan and Nellie, stand on JU’s Science Green, where every new Dolphin begins and ends their journey at Jacksonville University.
From a student contest in 1947 to the bronze statues welcoming generations of Dolphins to campus, JU’s mascot has evolved into an enduring symbol of University spirit.
