page_title: Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders
section_title: Mascot
hierarchical_section_title: Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders / Mascot
caption_attribution_description: MTSU's mascot "Lightning" prior to a football game.
context_page_description: The Blue Raiders are the men's and women's athletic teams at Middle Tennessee State University, in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. MT athletic teams participate in NCAA Division I in Conference USA. MT competed in the Ohio Valley Conference until 2000, and the Sun Belt Conference until 2013.
context_section_description: MTSU's original mascot was Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate General and early leader in the Ku Klux Klan. Because of Forrest's ties to the Ku Klux Klan, the mascot was later changed to a blue-colored scent hound dog named "Ole Blue" in the 1970s.
  MTSU's current mascot is a blue winged horse named "Lightning," adopted as the mascot in 1998, when the athletics department updated its image in preparation for the 1999 upgrade to Division I-A football and subsequent transfer to the Sun Belt Conference. "Lightning" symbolizes the university's aerospace and horse science programs and the region's heritage in the walking horse industry.
caption: "Lightning", MTSU's mascot, prior to a football game
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