Big Red is the mascot of Western Kentucky University's sports teams, the "Hilltoppers" and "Lady Toppers".

[1] Prior to the start of the 1979 college basketball season, WKU student Ralph Carey volunteered to create a mascot for the school's sports teams.

[2] Although he liked the antics of the San Diego Padres' chicken mascot and initially sketched a bear wearing a sweater emblazoned with the letter "W", he ultimately decided not to use a known animal or entity.

[2] Carey eventually presented the sketch of a red, furry blob-like mascot concept to a committee which included future university president Gary Ransdell.

[2] Carey then performed in the suit he created when Big Red debuted at a home basketball game on December 1, 1979, in WKU's E.A.

[4] The Bowling Green Daily News, the paper of record in WKU's home city, described Big Red as the "amorphous, ambiguous, asexual and always lovable representative of the school’s athletics", although in response to a Twitter message from WKU wishing Big Red a happy birthday, Ryan Nanni of SB Nation's college football blog "Every Day Should Be Saturday" speculated that having a birthday implied that Big Red was the result of—and was created by—sexual reproduction.

[8] That year, Big Red appeared on the game show "Wheel of Fortune" as part of the promotion of the Challenge.

[10] Big Red also ranked tenth in the inaugural Cheetos Top 25 Cheesiest College Mascots that year.

[11] In 2017, WKU's student newspaper, the College Heights Herald, reported that a crowdfunding campaign on the website SpiritFunder raised over $7,000 from 44 donors in three days to purchase a new costume for Big Red.

[12] In 2003, Western Kentucky University sued Antonio Ricci and Italian television station Mediaset for $250 million, claiming that Gabibbo, a character created by Ricci and featured on Mediaset's show Striscia la Notizia, was a "carbon copy" of Big Red and infringed on the university's intellectual property rights.