Western Carolina University (WCU) is a coeducational state funded college situated in Cullowhee, North Carolina, United States. The college is a constituent grounds of the University of North Carolina framework

The Western Carolina Catamounts are the athletic groups of Western Carolina University. The Catamounts contend in the NCAA Division I Southern Conference. Western fields sixteen varsity sports groups. The Catamount football group contends in Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS).

Mascot

The University’s mascot is the Catamount. This moniker has been Western's mascot since 1933."What precisely is a Catamount?" Wild felines of the "catamount assortment", including the wildcat, cougar or lynx, have meandered the southern Appalachian Mountains for a considerable length of time. Be that as it may, the epithet developed from a challenge that was hung on the Cullowhee grounds in 1933. The challenge came down to Mountain Boomers, a little ground squirrel that hurries about the forested areas and is greatly hard to catch, and Catamounts. Head Football Coach C.C. Poindexter chose Catamounts, as he needed his players to show a "furious soul, savage assaults, and lightning brisk moves." WCU is one of just two colleges in the United States with this mascot (the other is the University of Vermont).

"Paws" the Catamount is the official mascot of Western Carolina University. He shows up at various occasions and capacities crosswise over western North Carolina.

Hall of Fame

The college set up an athletic lobby of distinction in 1990. The lobby of acclaim respects those competitors, mentors, and individuals whose remarkable commitments have advanced the athletic projects of Western Carolina University

Football

Western Carolina football was conceived in 1931, on account of C.C. Poindexter. Regularly alluded to as the "Father of Western Carolina Athletics" in view of his endeavors in arranging what was then Western Carolina Teachers College's first athletic program in the mid 1930s. He was the first to be enlisted by the school to work solely in sports and turned into the principal head football mentor.