Idaho's student-athletes go by a name earned nearly a century ago by a basketball team coached by legendary coach Hec Edmundson, whose teams played defense with such intensity and ferocity that sports writers said they "vandalized" their opponents. The mark made by that 1917 team went far deeper than wins and losses on the court. In 1917, Harry Lloyd "Jazz" McCarty- a writer for the Argonaut- subtly tagged the team with a new nickname in a pre-game write-up. "The opening game with Whitman will mark a new epoch in Idaho basketball history, for the present gang of 'Vandals ' have the best material that has ever carried the 'I' into action." McCarty's indirect suggestion stuck. In 1921, Vandals was officially adopted as the nickname for all Idaho teams. The University of Idaho is the only institution of higher education to use the mascot of the Vandal.