- Miners?
- Commodores?
- Cardinal?
The Miners are the University of Texas - El Paso, frequently just UTEP. The name comes from the naissance of the school; it was founded in 1914 as the Texas State School of Mines and Metallurgy. Enrollment is around 20,000 and is 73% of Mexican descent. 
The school is part of Conference USA.
The UTEP mascot (dedicated to my investment partner) is Paydirt Pete.
The Commodores, in addition to being the band that was the starting point for Lionel Richie in the 70's and 80's (which is better: Three Times a Lady or Brick House?) are Vanderbilt University.
The school and the teams are named for Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, who founded the school in 1873 with a million dollar grant. Today, there are around 12,000 students.
Vanderbilt is a member of the SEC. Vandy is frequently referred to as the Harvard of the South.
UIC, the University of Illinois-Chicago, formerly "Circle Campus", is known as Harvard on Halsted. Just sayin'...and Brick House is far and away the better song.
Finally, the Cardinal is Stanford University, established 1891, 15,000 students today. Leland Stanford was the governor of and later a US Senator from California.
The Cardinal refers to the school's color, cardinal red. The teams were known as the Indians until 1972, when they became the Cardinals, not the bird cardinals but the color, which didn't make a lot of sense. They became the Cardinal, singular form, in 1981.
It's noteworthy that the school moved to be politically correct nearly 40 years ago with respect to the team name. On the other side of the coin, the team mascot is a tree.
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