Athletic Colors and Nicknames
In 1890, a vote by the Athletic Association selected cardinal and black to be the school colors; the preferred scheme of orange and navy has been taken by Western University of Pennsylvania. Since then, the phrase "Red and Black" has been used to refer to the school itself, the college newspaper (Red & Black) and the athletic teams. The early athletic teams also were known as the "Jaymen," a play on the college's nickname "W&J". By the 1930s, the word "Jaymen" was used to refer to the students in general. The use of this term had died off even before the college went co-educational in 1970. The college's modern nickname of "Presidents" was coined in 1917 by a sportswriter from Richmond, Virginia covering the football game between W&J and the Washington & Lee Generals. Larry Stewart, the W&J's football publicity director at the time, quickly adopted the nickname on a permanent basis.
Read more about this topic: Washington & Jefferson Presidents
Famous quotes containing the words athletic and/or colors:
“Short of a wholesale reform of college athletics—a complete breakdown of the whole system that is now focused on money and power—the women’s programs are just as doomed as the men’s are to move further and further away from the academic mission of their colleges.... We have to decide if that’s the kind of success for women’s sports that we want.”
—Christine H. B. Grant, U.S. university athletic director. As quoted in the Chronicle of Higher Education, p. A42 (May 12, 1993)
“He hath ribbons of all the colors i’the rainbow.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)