Are There Broncos In Western Michigan?

Driving with Jackie from Grand Rapids back home to Kalamazoo I notice a large billboard advertising the Western Michigan Broncos.  Kalamazoo is my current home but I've spent the better part of my life in Holland.  I realize that I have no idea why WMU would call itself the Broncos so I ask my gal from Kalama zoo, zoo, zoo.  Jackie has no idea.

I figure there must be some logical answer and so I run through the options in my head.  There were few available to this feeble mind.  Could it be that they are called the Broncos because the school is located in the Western side of Michigan?  Well then, if a university was situated, let's say in Western Maine, would they be just as comfortable calling themselves Broncos? 

There is a town in the Grand Rapids area named Wyoming and they use to have an annual rodeo so I could see where maybe an adjunct campus of Davenport or Grand Valley State might go with Broncos.  But as far as I know we have had no rodeos or wild west shows or mass immigrations from Texas or Oklahoma into Kalamazoo.  I can't remember the last time I bumped into a stray horse on one of my walks.

When we got home I saw Jackie's brother Jerry, who as it happens graduated from Western, as did some of his children.  When I asked Jerry why WMU called themselves Broncos he told me he had no idea, then asked;  "Does there need to be a reason?"

Well, maybe for a high school, no.  But most of the colleges that immediately came to mind had obvious connections to their nicknames.  I went to Aquinas College.  While I was going there the powers that be changed the teams names from the Saints (Catholic school, what we aspire to) to the Tommies (St. Thomas Aquinas).  When in the early 1970's the students heard that the new name was the Tommies we said, "The Who?" (You need to tear down that wall one brick at a time(:

Michigan's Wolverine is our state animal.  The Central Michigan Chippewas come from a local Indian tribe.  My children went to Hope College in Holland and were the Dutchmen.  Becky and for awhile Carrie went to Marquette University in Milwaukee and when there, bowing to pressure from their Native Americans, the name changed from the Warriors to the Golden Eagles, which I can kinda figure out.

Notre Dame's Irish is no mystery.  At one time Michigan State was an agricultural college so we all know about Spartan brand foods, and that Southern Cal's teams are named after the brand name of a product dispensed from vending machines in public restrooms.

But why the name Broncos?  I Googled the question and found out that prior to 1939 WMU went by the name Hilltoppers.  Well . . . Kalamazoo is located in an area known as the Kalamazoo Valley, and for good reason.  There are a few hills around the campus so I guess Hilltoppers was a better choice than say  Valleydogs.  The football team was pretty good around then and there were two other major universities that also went by the name Hilltoppers;  Western Kentucky and the aforementioned Marquette.   To avoid confusion a name change was desired.  An assistant football coach suggested Broncos and the rest is, as they say, still confusing to me.