The athletic teams at the University of Arizona are known as the Arizona Wildcats.
The University of Arizona participates in the NCAA's Division I-A in the Pacific-12 Conference Arizona participates in the conference's South Division, along with Arizona State, Colorado, UCLA, USC, and Utah. Arizona joined the Pac-8 in 1978 along with Arizona State University, bringing the conference to 10 teams and the new name of the Pac-10 (the conference became the Pac-12 with the additions of Colorado and Utah in 2011). The school colors are cardinal red and navy blue, and the official fight song is "Fight! Wildcats! Fight!", though "Bear Down, Arizona!" is more commonly used and "Bear Down" is the university's slogan.
The Wildcats name derived from a 1914 football game with then California champions Occidental College, where the L.A. Times asserted that Arizona "showed the fight of wildcats."
The University mascots are anthropomorphized wildcats named Wilbur and Wilma. The identities of Wilbur and Wilma are kept secret through the year as the mascots appear only in costume, except typically until the last home basketball game of the year. Then, at halftime, Wilbur and Wilma are exposed. In 1986, Wilbur and Wilma, a longtime couple, were married. Together, Wilbur and Wilma appear along with the cheerleading squad at most Wildcat sporting events.
Arizona's first mascot was a real desert bobcat named "Rufus Arizona", introduced in 1915 and named after the university's president at the time, Rufus B. von KleinSmid.