Have you ever wondered why Concordia College's mascot is a corncob? The origin actually has roots in some antagonistic name-calling! Hope Academy, also located in Moorhead, provided early competition for Concordia financially and academically. The glaring difference between the two institutes is that Hope Academy was a Swedish Lutheran school and Concordia is a Norwegian Lutheran school. This ethnic dissimilarity proved to be a point of tension and derision between the two establishments. One day in 1893, Concordia students were enjoying some "literary entertainments" (most likely a lecture or a debate) when some Swedish Hope Academy students interrupted with this chant: "Corncobs! Corncobs! Hva'ska' De ha? Lutefisk and Lefse - Yah! Yah! Yah!" However, the Cobbers did not let the Hope Academy students triumph -- the Norwegians charged the Swedes and left them knee-deep in the muddy ravine near present-day Prexy's Pond. When pondering why Hope students chose corncobs, Bogstad rationalized that it could have come from the paralleling of C.C. (Concordia College - CornCob) or perhaps from the cornfield located behind the boys' dormitory. Either way, Concordia students liked the way it sounded and kept it as a brand of their own. Comments are closed.
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