Catamounts

Bob Waters never set out to become the name on the field he once coached from the sideline. He led Western Carolina's run to the NCAA Division I-AA National Championship game in 1983, a season that ended in a 43–7 defeat to Southern Illinois but left the program with the closest thing it has to a signature year. Five years later the university put his name on the turf itself, and Bob Waters Field has carried it since.

The program traces back to 1931, when C.C. Poindexter took charge as the university's first athletic director. Two years on, he picked the nickname Catamounts over the alternative on offer, Mountain Boomers, wanting something with teeth in it. The North State Conference title followed in 1949, long before the Southern Conference became home in 1977 and long before Division I-AA, now the FCS, gave the Catamounts their biggest stage.

More players have gone on from Cullowhee than the championship banner suggests. Clyde Simmons built a pass-rushing career worth 121.5 sacks and two First-team All-Pro nods; David Patten won three Super Bowls with the New England Patriots. Steve Williams got there first, drafted into the NFL in 1972 as the school's original pro.

Two rivalries still shape the autumn calendar. The Battle for the Old Mountain Jug against Appalachian State has sat dormant since 2013, with a renewal already pencilled in for 2028, while the Blue Ridge Border Battle against East Tennessee State keeps going every year, fought over a trophy called simply the Rock.

Games are still played at Whitmire Stadium, expanded in 2003 with a new west grandstand that pushed capacity to 13,742, purple and gold filling the stands above Bob Waters Field in Cullowhee.