Many Go programmers refer to themselves as Gophers actually after the mascot the same way university students might refer to them selves as Jaguars, Titians, or Aggies.

It's hard to google a good example but here's one I found:

> A creative and passionate community of Go developers and users (“Gophers”) has grown up around the language, and today there are U.S. Go conferences, European Go conferences, […] even a group for LGBT Gophers (yes, “Gayphers”).

https://blog.newrelic.com/technology/golang-experts-follow-o...

Doesn't look like it. Looks like they are just using it for artistic flourish.