Hear the Alumnus and History Columnist for Princeton Alumni Weekly (PP287.1–2)

Gregg Lange, Class of 1970, history columnist for Princeton Alumni Weekly talks about The Orange and the Black           

As Princeton school spirit and intercollegiate athletics rapidly took form following the Civil War, Princeton’s class of 1869 chose orange badges for its freshman baseball team to wear against Yale, since William III of Nassau, after whom Nassau Hall was named, was also Prince of Orange. They used black ink to inscribe their class numerals, since that’s what they had. Within fifteen years, Princeton’s teams – especially the national power football team – were becoming known as Tigers by the press, in part because of their orange-and-black striped jerseys. The marriage of the colors and the mascot was cemented by undergraduate Clarence Mitchell of the Class of 1889 when he penned the ballad, still sung today, that ends this way:

We will own the lilies slender,
Nor honor shall they lack,
While the tiger stands defender
Of the Orange and the Black.
[sung or spoken]

*For its 1876 football game with Yale, Princeton's team proudly wore black jerseys with an orange “P” on the chest. When orange stripes appeared on the black jerseys, sleeves, and stockings in 1880, the nickname “Tigers” became part of the Princeton lexicon.

**On October 12, 1868, the faculty of the College of New Jersey (as Princeton University was then known) passed a resolution permitting students “to adopt and wear as the college badge an orange colored Ribbon bearing upon it the word Princeton.” Pictured here is a badge for Class of 1870.