TOM (mascot)
mascot of the University of Memphis Tigers
TOM (Tigers Of Memphis) is the name of three Bengal tigers which have served as the mascot of the Memphis Tigers since 1972. The most recent, TOM III, was a Bengal tiger mascot for the University of Memphis. He died on September 18, 2020, less than three weeks after his 12th birthday. The Tigers' football team also has a costumed mascot called Pouncer.
TOM III was housed and cared for by the Tiger Guard, a committee of the Highland Hundred football booster club. University funds are not used to provide for the tiger's needs. The University of Memphis was one of two universities in the United States that use a live tiger as a mascot (the other being LSU) and has received criticism from animal welfare organizations.
Until TOM II, Memphis was the only school to have a live tiger mascot present at football games. TOM attends Memphis Tiger home games at
Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium in a special sound proof, air conditioned trailer.
History
TOM I
The first tiger, TOM, was purchased for $1,500 by the Highland Hundred Football Boosters in 1972.
The public source identifies “TOM (mascot)” as mascot of the University of Memphis Tigers. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around mascot, University and Memphis.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Oct 9, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q7670996. The first chronological checks are 1972 and 2020.
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This entry incorporates text from “TOM (mascot)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.