The elephant races – held on The Day of the Titan, May 11, 1962 – are credited with first associating the Titan name with the elephant mascot. On that sunny May afternoon, about 10,000 spectators trudged through the then-secluded Orange County State College campus to “Dumbo Downs,” a hastily converted cornfield next to where to Titan Student Union now stands, to watch a series of five different elephant races.