Loose zebra revives story behind Lincoln High’s Fighting Zebras mascot
When a zebra named Zeus was spotted wandering through town over the weekend, it renewed a question for many locals: How did Lincoln High School end up with the fighting zebras as its mascot?
The school’s teams were not always known as the Zebras, nor did they always wear blue and gold.
Mary MacQueen, Lincoln High School’s Activities Director, said the school’s original colors were red and white.
“Our colors were red and white first, and that’s because the first principal came from Stanford,” she said.
The school’s second principal came from UC Berkeley, inspiring a switch to blue and gold.
The zebra mascot originated in 1927 under unusual circumstances. While the school waited for uniforms to be made, the basketball team borrowed uniforms from a local team for a game.
The borrowed uniforms had black and white stripes.
“When we’re playing the opposing team said, ‘Look at Lincoln. They look like a bunch of zebras out on the court.’ And the students here embraced it, and so did the community,” MacQueen said.
However, the earliest newspaper reference to a Lincoln team called the “Zebras” appeared earlier — in a Dec. 21, 1922, article in Lincoln High School’s student paper El Eco, published as part of the Lincoln News Messenger.
The design for the original Fighting Zebra was created in the 1960s by a student who carved the image into plywood.
“He wanted to prove, like, we can make the zebra look fierce,” MacQueen said. “You have all these AI generated things, but this was even before AI that somebody hand traced it. He did it like pieces of plywood in the backyard.”
She said the original wooden zebra still hangs in the school’s old gym.
After the COVID-19 pandemic, the school introduced a new mascot costume. The update prompted students to realize the zebra had never been given an official name.
Students eventually chose the name ZOOse, inspired by the school’s student section, known as “The Zoo.”
The name closely resembled Zeus, a real zebra that recently drew attention across Lincoln after escaping his enclosure multiple times.
Zeus was first found wandering near the Lincoln-Sheridan border on April 10 and was returned to his owner the next day, according to Placer County Animal Services. He escaped again April 13 and was later safely corralled by responding officers.
Officials said the repeated escapes may have been tied to recent storms and the animal adjusting to a new environment.
