George Tirebiter

George Tirebiter was the nickname initially given to a dog at the University of Southern California in the 1940s who was the unofficial mascot of the school before becoming the official mascot on October 22, 1947. The nickname was passed on to George Tirebiter's subsequent successors after the original Tirebiter's death in 1950. The original Tirebiter was a nationally known figure and beloved canine of the University of Southern California. He would lead the marching band out at home football games and once even entered in an armored car. Tirebiter was kidnapped, or thought to have been kidnapped, multiple times by the University of Southern California's rival the University of California, Los Angeles, USC student politicians for publicity, and once possibly by a newspaper. The line of Tirebiters lasted through 1961 when the legacy of the Tirebiter mascots was replaced with Traveler, the white Andalusian horse ridden by a Trojan rider at USC home football games and various other university events.

Due to the apocryphal nature of many of Tirebiter's origin stories, it is difficult to establish the provenance of any one explanation. There exists a wide range of possible stories.

One claims that a stray dog was discovered by a group of USC students at Currie's Ice Cream parlor and that one student remarked that the dog looked like a Navy V-12 student named George Kuhns. Thus, the dog was dubbed "George."

Another story was that the dog was the pet of a local couple and that he was initially named "Leo." When the couple split the dog was abandoned before being adopted by local woman Mrs. Ann Schreiber. She was supposedly a great lover of dogs who wanted to provide for the lost dog. She named him "George" due to the resemblance he bore to a friend of hers.

Another origin story was claimed by Dan Schiavone, president of the Trojan Knights, on the occasion of a memorial ceremony honoring Tirebiter on September 21, 1950. Schiavone claimed that Tirebiter was a K-9 police dog that was discarded from the program and subsequently found as a stray on USC's campus. However, the veracity of this account is somewhat in question due to the context of the speech and this being the singular mention of such an origin.

He received the surname "Tirebiter" because he would bite at the tires of cars he chased down Trousdale Parkway, which bisects the campus. (Today Trousdale is only open to foot traffic.)

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