The Original Bulldog
In the 1920s, College of San Mateo had a real English Bulldog. His name was Rival Goldstone, and like today’s student-athlete Bulldogs he came from a proud line of winners.
When then-San Mateo Junior College opened in 1922, its small student body immediately wanted all the trappings of college life: sports teams, school colors, bonfires, freshman-sophomore pranks, and, of course, a college mascot.
The team name “Bulldogs” was chosen by popular acclaim: None of the schools the new college was likely to play was using the name.
Rival was offered to SMJC by the dog-breeding Ballentyne family, whose daughter Hessie was a student. He was a true son of San Mateo, having been raised in the family’s acclaimed Goldstone Kennels on Highland and East Poplar avenues.
As a novice show dog in 1920, Rival had won Best of Breed at the Coronado Kennel Club near San Diego. He was so renowned among dog fanciers that when he came down with an eye ailment in 1921 it made national dog-show news. Rival rallied in November of that year, capturing Best of Show at the Golden Gate Kennel Club in San Francisco.
“The ... dog has come back into his own, though for a while he was threatened with the loss of one eye and is now in the pink of condition and showed perfectly,” Dog Fancier magazine reported that December.
Rival certainly looks healthy in his official school portrait from the mid-1920s, if not the “ferocious animal” that San Mateo athletic boosters touted him to be. He could be seen at football games dressed in a small coat and cap. But Rival drops out of dog-show news after his San Francisco comeback victory. Perhaps his new duties representing human Bulldogs in their own competitions kept him too busy.
