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Amherst College Vote: Mascot Name Receives 'Mammoth' Change

AMHERST (CBS/AP) — Get ready to cheer for the Amherst College Mammoths.

The Massachusetts school Monday announced that its athletic teams will be known as the Mammoths after a yearlong selection process and vote that involved thousands of alumni, students and faculty.

The selection board said people who suggested mammoths noted they are "impressive," ''stupendous and monumental," and "near mythic."

Backers also noted the school's natural history museum houses a mammoth skeleton discovered by Amherst professor Frederick Brewster Loomis and brought to the college in 1925.

The process started in January 2016 when school trustees decided the school's unofficial nickname, Lord Jeffs, was inappropriate in part because the 18th century British Gen. Jeffery Amherst suggested giving smallpox-infected blankets to Native Americans.

The board initially received hundreds of sometimes whimsical and silly suggestions.

The school says 9,295 votes were cast.

"In total, 9,295 people voted and 4,356 votes were cast in favor of the Mammoths," the college said in a statement.

(© Copyright 2017 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

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