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:
“Difficulty, my brethren, is the nurse of greatness—a harsh nurse, who roughly rocks her foster-children into strength and athletic proportion.”
—William Cullen Bryant (1794–1878)
“One wonders that the tithing-men and fathers of the town are not out to see what the trees mean by their high colors and exuberance of spirits, fearing that some mischief is brewing. I do not see what the Puritans did at this season, when the maples blaze out in scarlet. They certainly could not have worshiped in groves then. Perhaps that is what they built meeting-houses and fenced them round with horse-sheds for.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)