Many students broadcast their UMBC pride in traditional fashion – on a black and gold t-shirt, hoodie or ball cap. But UMBC seniors Chris Snyder ’12 and Chris Bowie ’12 have taken their case of Retriever Fever one very permanent step further.

“It was my last season of cross country, so I wanted to do something special,” says Snyder, a mechanical engineering major who along with Bowie had the new UMBC retriever logo tattooed on his left calf last spring.

Since its debut in summer 2010, the Retriever logo has spread quickly across the university’s walls and furniture, but never quite so indelibly as this. The inking process – including the addition of traditional cross country wings at the base of the dog – took about half an hour per runner, they said.

“You know, I like this school and I put all four years here into (a sport) I love,” says Bowie, a political science major. “It just made sense to want something permanent from a place that means something to me.”

So far, neither runner regrets the decision (or, at least, admits it). In fact, they both claim to get quite a few compliments. “You know, it might actually become a tradition,” says Bowie. “A lot of the freshmen runners want to get the dog… but they say they want to prove themselves first.”

— Jenny O’Grady