The 20 Worst College Mascots You’ll Even Encounter

Ephelia the Purple Cow

No one at Williams College knows for sure why their school mascot is a purple cow with yellow spots. No one ever bothered to question it anymore; it is something that they just accepted. The closest theory it that the cow’s name, Ephelia, came from a nonsensical poem about purple-colored cows published in 1907 in a humor magazine called The Purple Cow.