Wright State Hits A Deer With Their Team Bus, Uses Deer Carcass As Mascot In The Dugout

TSN – The Wright State baseball team turned its season around shortly after the team bus struck a deer.

On its way to play Northern Kentucky on April 24, the bus hit and killed a deer. After sweeping their next two series, they figured the deer was good luck, and they’ve been taking a stuffed deer head with them ever since.

“They named him Gary Croswell,” Wright State coach Greg Lovelady recently told the Dayton Daily News. “The bus driver’s name was Gary, and Croswell was the name of the bus company. It’s taken on a life of its own. It just keeps getting bigger and bigger.”

The Raiders had lost four times in April before the accident but have lost just four times since while winning the Horizon League title and setting a school record with 45 victories.

“It was really a weird turning point,” Lovelady said. “It’s hard to say that’s the reason, but ever since then we’ve been playing really well. The energy’s been different.

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Maybe the most prototypical college baseball story of all time. Seriously I wouldn’t be surprised if you looked up College Baseball in the dictionary and saw a picture of the Wright State manager standing next to a dead deer wearing a baseball hat in the dugout. Most people smash into a deer with a bus and say “oh shit…was that a deer?” then carry on with their lives. A college baseball team decides it’s an omen so they dress a dead deer up and carry him around Weekend at Bernie’s style for good luck.

And it worked! School record 45 wins with only 4 losses since annihilating Bambi. They just got bounced by Louisville, but if I know anything about how college baseball and the Gods of the sport work, they wouldn’t have even sniffed that matchup in the first place without Gary the Dead Ass Deer.