The official mascot of the University of California, Berkeley is Oski the Bear, who represents the university’s California Golden Bears sports teams.
Oski originated as a cartoon-strip character in Cal’s student newspaper, The Daily Californian, and made his real-life debut on September 27th, 1941, during Cal Football’s victory in a season opener against the Saint Mary’s Gaels. Previously, Cal had used live bears at games as mascots.
Oski is named after the old ‘Oski Yell’ that was once regularly chanted at football and basketball games, but now rarely heard.
