Marco the Bison is the official costumed mascot of Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia.

Marshall's student body first got a bison in the 1930s, when an animal from the famous Marland 101 Ranch in Oklahoma was procured.

Duke Ridgley was a fan of Zane Grey's novel, "The Thundering Herd," and the silent movie that came out not long after the book was released in 1925.

In 1964, Dr. Stewart Smith, President of Marshall University, gave student, faculty, alumni and others a chance to vote on three again: Thundering Herd, Big Green and the Rams, with Sam the Ram suggested by a former President of the MU Alumni Association, Leonard Samworth.

The two made regular appearances at football game: in fact, the real Marco got loose on the Astroturf in 1971 and delayed a second-half kickoff until he was returned to his cage.

Marshall also had "Marsha," a female mascot in the wake of the women's liberation movement of the 1970s who was created in 1973 but only through the end of the 1970s.

[4] When the smoke cleared from the tunnel, fans saw a mascot with smaller feet, track pants, muscles and a face bearing an enormous nose, long nails on the fingers (supposed to look like hooves on the rare time the mascot held his fingers together and down towards the ground) and glaring eyes.

Though some years later, Marsha would retire from the cheering life and left Marco to pump up the crowds alone while she moved on to work in digital designs (her true passion).