Roar-ee the Lion

The idea of having a lion as the mascot of Columbia was first proposed by George Brokaw Compton at the April 5, 1910 meeting of the alumni association.

[8] Several days later, an alumnus offered to donate a live lion cub to the university to serve as its mascot, which football Coach Charley Crowley turned down out of safety concerns.

[14] The Scholar's Lion, sculpted by alumnus Greg Wyatt, was unveiled as part of Columbia's semiquincentennial celebrations on April 7, 2004, and stands near Havemeyer Hall.

Other names in consideration included Hamilton, Hudson, K.C., and J.J.[17] Pale wraith of happier days, who sadly stand Amid the relics of the simple life, Apartment houses grace the rolling land Where goatherds tootled on the horn and fife.

[19] The proposal was met with some resistance: one student, only going by the pseudonym "Amicus Leonis", smeared her in the Columbia Daily Spectator, stating that he regarded her candidacy "as a joke, as not being worthy of our institution and not at all appealing to any serious sentiment whatsoever.

[21] Upon her death in 1914, Columbia students held a funeral procession for Matilda, for which they donned their academic regalia and sang a dirge called "A Harlem Goat".

Her lifeless body was stuffed with sawdust and placed in a niche above the front door of Charles Friedgen's drugstore, which was located across the street from the Riley farm.

[22] This move was met with stiff resistance, and a petition was drawn up by students which called upon Matilda's owners to "save its mortal remains from the icy grasp of the New-York Historical Society," and for the university administration to intervene.

Leo was designed by alumnus Howard Dietz, who served as MGM's director of advertising, and chose the Lion as a tribute to Columbia.