Jack IV

Jack IV

Jack the Bulldog is the official mascot of the Georgetown University Hoyas athletic teams. The school has employed at least nine live Bulldogs as mascots, and counts seven named Jack since 1962, when the name first came into use, including three who are still living. The current incarnation of Jack, who will be taking over from his predecessor during the spring 2024 semester, is an English Bulldog born in 2023 whose full name is Serchell's John P. Carroll. Recent bulldogs have come from the Georgetown alumni family of Janice and Marcus Hochstetler. Jack was not always the name of the Georgetown Hoyas' mascot, nor was the mascot always a bulldog, as other types of dogs, particularly bull terriers, were associated with the sports teams before 1962. In 2009, the American Kennel Club ranked Jack as the 8th most popular dog in American culture. Today, Georgetown is among thirty-nine American universities to use a bulldog as their mascot, with Georgia, Butler, Mississippi State, Yale, and James Madison being the only others with a live bulldog. Jack is also portrayed by a costumed character Bulldog mascot, a tradition dating to 1977. In 2019, a campus editorial called for replacing the bulldog with a rescue dog, in part because of the health problems and short lifespans that many bulldogs face.

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