Rufus the Bobcat

Rufus the Bobcat is the mascot for the Ohio Bobcats. Ohio University revealed the new mascot during a ceremony before the Bobcats' victory over Tennessee-Martin on September 2, 2006. At the suggestion of a university alumnus, Michael Massa, Class of 1982, a university-wide contest to name the bobcat took place in 2006. The unveiling ceremony began with a video of the mascot interacting with the football team and head coach Frank Solich, culminating with Rufus roaring into Peden Stadium on a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. In 2018, after an international space conference had been held on campus, Rufus the Bobcat was the first college mascot's name to venture into deep outer space aboard an unmanned NASA spacecraft, carrying a CD library of names. In 2020, Ohio University launched its first actual space satellite "Bobcat-1" aboard NASA's Antares rocket, to the International Space Station.^{[citation needed]}