Libby
Samford has gained a new spirited fan this fall as it joins the Southern Conference. Her name is Libby, and she is the University’s new live bulldog. Libby will be on the sidelines during home football games, helping cheer the Bulldogs to victory.
A registered English bulldog, she is owned by David and Rhoda Oser of Vestavia Hills, Ala. The product of six generations of breeding, she is registered with the American Kennel Club with the formal name, Oser’s Lady Liberty.
Her name is especially fitting for Samford because many of the school’s best-known benefactors, including Frank Park Samford, Ralph and Dwight Beeson, Andrew Gerow Hodges and F. Page Seibert, were affiliated with Liberty National Life Insurance Company.
The Osers contacted Samford’s athletics department last spring about the possibility of providing a live mascot for the university. The university welcomed Libby to campus, and now has a real bulldog to work alongside its costumed human mascot, "Spike."
Libby has toured the campus but feels most at home in Seibert Stadium, according to the Osers. She also welcomed fans to the first Southern Conference FanFest for the Aug. 28 opener with West Georgia.
Samford has had live bulldog mascots previously, but not in several years.
