Baylor University's women's basketball team is dropping “Lady” from its name.
The three-time NCAA Champions in Waco, Texas, will be referred to as the "Bears," like the university's other sports teams, according to a KXXV-TV report.
"Baylor Women's Basketball has solidified itself as one of Baylor's most remarkable and celebrated programs," the school said in a statement, CNN reported. "While the use of Lady Bears is still very much a part of the program's decorated history, in an effort to be more consistent with the current nomenclature of the other 18 Baylor sport programs, the team will now be referred to as simply the Bears."
The department joins a growing movement across college sports, in which the men's and women's teams hold the same mascot identity.
Baylor made the change on its athletic social media accounts in the last week, KXXV-TV reported.
"This evolution is unique in that it creates consistency among Baylor teams while also highlighting the individual sport and contributions of its athletes and coaches," Baylor said in the statement.
The only team in the Big 12 conference now with the "Lady" prefix in its name is the Texas Tech Lady Raiders — though Oklahoma State's women's basketball team is known as the Cowgirls, as opposed to the men's Cowboy, according to the CNN report.
Just got confirmation from a Baylor spokesperson that BaylorWBB will no longer go by the nickname “Lady Bears.”
— Jack Allen (JackAllenKXXV) September 3, 2021
As darbyjobrown pointed out earlier, the team has already changed its social media names. SicEm
