Years ago, at Thanksgiving, I was chatting with my niece, a junior in high school, about college. When I suggested she check out a particular SEC school that we had recently come to love, she said. 鈥淗mmm, I don鈥檛 think I look good in purple and gold.鈥� Huh? Who thought colors were a factor when deciding your next 4 years?
Well, I guess it鈥檚 fair. When you choose a college, you choose the colors. You will be receiving lots of spirit items for graduation, birthdays, and Christmas. You鈥檒l buy knick-knacks from the bookstore when you fall in love on that college tour: sweatshirts, coffee mugs, flags, decals, stationery, and so on. And if you have a positive college experience, you鈥檒l not only sport these colors in college, you鈥檒l hold those colors dear for the rest of your life.
When you explore a university鈥檚 website to find their acceptance rate, cost of attendance, and mascot, you鈥檒l also see the school colors. But HOW those hues were chosen is another story. When you search the history, you鈥檒l find many interesting stories, some legend, some truth, some a little bit of both. According to , LSU鈥檚 鈥減urple and gold鈥� has its roots in Mardi Gras:
鈥淯pon his arrival to Louisiana State University in 1893, Coates noticed the lack of athletics and hastily helped assemble a football team to play Tulane that year. When searching for colors, he went to Reymond鈥檚 on the corner of Third and Main in Baton Rouge to buy colored ribbons to adorn the uniforms. The store had plenty of purple and gold, but the other Mardi Gras color, green, had not arrived.”
Harvard鈥檚 famous crimson started at a regatta back in 1958. The crewmen wanted to distinguish themselves from the other teams, so Charles W. Eliot, a tutor and oarsman, decided the team would sport red handkerchiefs, knowing the color would stand out. 鈥漌hen these handkerchiefs were drenched in sweat, they took on the color of blood. The true color of blood is crimson,鈥� says Professor Peter J. Gomes. Thus, Harvard Crimson were born! (Harvard Explained, thecrimson.com)
So, students, when you go on that college visit, ask your tour guide how the university selected its colors. Some will give you the facts but many will give you the legend, which is often a more gripping tale. University of Pennsylvania, one of the original Ivy League Schools, was competing against Harvard and Yale at a track and field event. When the Penn captain was asked what color their team wanted to be, he said 鈥渁 combination of the two teams we are about to beat: Harvard Crimson and Yale Blue.鈥� Thus, Penn became the Red and Blue. However, when I did a little research on , I found no such story. But does it really matter?
The point is that the colors help create the family where you鈥檒l belong the next four years and, hopefully, for the rest of your life. You want to feel proud of the spirit that your colors evoke.
Back to my niece. She ended up wearing orange and black in college but married purple. So, it turns out, colors are important enough when choosing a college but not so important when choosing a life partner. Now her year-old daughter wears both of her parents鈥� colors and looks really cute in both.
Paige Naughton
Expert College Coach & SEC Lover
