In UCF’s early days as Florida Technical University, university president Charles Millican and his brother-in-law, Norman Van Meter, created a mascot for the university that combined Florida’s booming citrus industry with FTU’s academic mission to train future NASA and Cape Canaveral engineers. The result was a creature with the head of an alien and the body of an orange, named the “Citronaut.” He was a bit ahead of his time– the student body almost immediately petitioned for a new mascot, and won in 1970 when they became the Knights. Brought to you in partnership with College Vault.