Editor's note: This story first appeared in The Republic on December 05, 2008.

One of the most brutal battles between the Arizona State University Sun Devils and the University of Arizona Wildcats wasn't played out on the football field, but in the political arena. The contest was one of the most hard-fought campaigns in state history and has left lasting scars more than a half-century later.

The issue was whether to change the name of Arizona State College to Arizona State University.

People down in the Old Pueblo liked the idea of having the state's only university. Arizona State officials argued that the fast-growing college was already a university in everything but name.

The measure was placed on the ballot in 1958 by citizen initiative. It was called Proposition 200.

That number was literally burned into Sun Devil lore that year. On the day of the first game at Sun Devil Stadium, college officials discovered that vandals had broken in and burned "No 200" on the 50-yard line. They immediately suspected UA students, although the culprits were never identified.

Grady Gammage Jr., an attorney whose father was president of Arizona State during the name-change battle, said the campaign intensified the rivalry between the schools. "That just fueled this deep-seated animosity," Gammage said, "where people from ASU feel they've just been mean to us for so long.

"They're just nasty. They've tried so hard to keep us from being a university."

Gammage said other school rivalries -- Ohio State and Michigan, for example -- are between two schools that grew up side by side. This is a situation, unique in the nation, Gammage believes, where one university tried to stop another from forming.

"ASU had to fight its way every step of its history," he said, "and UA always wanted to keep it down."

Rob Spindler, head of ASU's archives and special collections, researched the campaign over the name change and set up a display of artifacts and photographs in the Luhrs Gallery, on the fourth floor of Hayden Library on the Tempe campus. Research is also contained on the Web site 50th.asu.edu.

Spindler said it was safe to say the 1958 political contest produced "a higher level of resentment" between the two schools.

LAST YEAR: Sun Devils came out on top a year ago

25 YEARS AGO: Wildcats come back to win

50 YEARS AGO: Became known as the Ultimatum Bowl

Tucson's University of Arizona was a land-grant university created in 1885. That same legislature started a teachers college, or normal school, in Tempe.

But by 1945, a crush of postwar students led the school to become Arizona State College at Tempe. Business leaders and the school's president, Grady Gammage, began pushing for university status.

In 1954, a report on higher education in Arizona, written by Ernest Hollis, federal director of college and university administration, said that "the state college at Tempe is rapidly becoming a university. This fact might as well be calmly recognized"

In a letter to Gammage, Hollis said the 9,701 enrolled students "is all the evidence that anyone would want to convince himself that today you are a university."

But that report met with resistance. The Board of Regents, which had requested the report, narrowly agreed to accept its recommendations. But Tucson lawmakers did not want to create a second university. Bills got bottled up in committees.

One state senator, Harold Giss of Yuma, tried to reach a compromise. He suggested the name Tempe University.

That resulted in student marches on the state Capitol. The crowd did not disperse, according to Spindler's research, until Giss appeared on a balcony and announced he had withdrawn the bill.

Figuring the name change would get nowhere in the Legislature, Gammage asked Jim Creasman, executive director of the alumni association, to organize a citizens initiative.

Spindler said it was a bold move. Gammage essentially was sidestepping the Board of Regents and state lawmakers. "If this didn't pass, he'd probably be fired," Spindler said.

Gammage didn't officially campaign for the measure. He left the stump speeches to his wife, Katherine, who toured the state along with Frank Kush, the coach of the Sun Devils football team.

Gammage Jr., who was 7 at the time, followed along for some of those rallies. "I went all over the state with her," he said. "We visited some cities in Arizona that I've never been back to."

Archival photos show a Piper aircraft painted with "Yes 200" wording, but Gammage said he doesn't think his mother ever used it for speeches. "We drove," he said.

Gammage remembered touring eastern Arizona and dipping south into UA country. "I can remember a lot of (anti-ASU) signs in the audience and people trying to shut down the ASU people," he said.

The campaign had the heavy support of Eugene Pulliam, publisher of The Arizona Republic and The Phoenix Gazette. "Arizona State College in Tempe is a university and therefore should be called Arizona State University," the Republic editorialized on Oct. 20, 1958. "The voter should express this opinion by marking Proposition 200 with a 'Yes' next month."

An editorial cartoon by the Republic's Reg Manning was used on campaign buttons. It showed on ostrich labeled "Tucson" with its head in the sand, thinking, "If we don't call it a university, maybe it'll go away."

The measure passed by a 2-to-1 margin statewide and by a more than 6-to-1 margin in Maricopa County. Pima County, home to Tucson, was one of three counties to vote against it. Santa Cruz and Cochise also voted no.

Gov. Ernest McFarland signed the proclamation that made the name change official on Dec. 5, 1958.

Grady Gammage Sr. died in December 1959, serving as president of the new university for only one year.

Looking back at the campaign, Gammage Jr. said it was odd that UA would oppose ASU's creation.

"It just doesn't seem rational to me that Arizona would have just one university," he said. "It only makes sense if you were going to assume the state would only be big enough for one university, but surely you wouldn't think that."

Gammage said he tries to tell the story of the university's creation to ASU students every chance he gets. It's a much different story from the typical land-grant school or one started by a church or a wealthy person.

"ASU is this populist uprising," he said. "It really is the result of students and others getting together and turning the place into a university."