Across the United States students, parents, family, faculty, fans, and alumni celebrate College Colors Day every year on the Friday before Labor Day. By rocking your college colors and apparel, you show spirit and school pride.

When you go to a college game and you look out all over the stands and on the field with cheerleaders, athletes, faculty, and friends all sporting the school colors, it’s hard to be nonchalant because it all just looks. so. cool!

So, whether you’re still in school or those college days are long behind you,  just for today — put on those old college t-shirts or watch your favorite college football game. True colors and spirit run deep

Learn about College Colors Day

College Colors Day is all about supporting your local college football team and wearing their colors with a great amount of pride. There are lots of reasons why College Colors Day is a great day to be celebrated, even if you are not a big sports fan. After all, I am sure we can all agree that college provides a great sense of togetherness and we learn a lot of life lessons along the way, as well as academic ones. A lot of people also make their friends for life at college, and so there is more to College Colors Day than meets the eye.

However, from the sports side of things, College Colors Day keeps the traditional alive. College colors are symbols of fun, joy, rivalry, history, and traditions. A lot of the different college teams have worn their colors for over 100 years, and there is something incredibly remarkable and touching about this. After all, it is a part of history! By honoring College Colors Day, you keep the tradition alive, and this is incredibly important. A lot of traditions over the years have dwindled and faded away, but we can make sure that this does not happen with college colors.

History of College Colors Day

Founded by the College Licensing Company in 2004, College Colors Day, fans have worn the apparel of their favorite college or university throughout the day. College Colors Day is celebrated by thousands of organizations, classrooms and millions of individuals who don their team colors and share their school spirit with friends and colleagues.

In 2015, CLC (College Licensing Company) launched the College Colors Challenge. Giving fans a chance to flaunt their colors and express their school spirit. The challenges revolve around three different categories represented by the hash-tags: #SQUADPIC (large group), #FAMPHOTO (family), and #SELFIE (individual).

There is also a lot of history behind the different colors that the college football teams in America wear. You can spend hours on end reading up about this, and this is certainly one of the most interesting ways to spend College Colors Day. We will talk you through the history of the colors for some of the college teams, however, there are plenty of others out there for you to delve deeper into. Let’s start with Michigan. Their color combination is blue and maize. It may not be the most flashy combination, yet it is traditional and it is recognizable straight away. How did these colors get chosen, though? Well, in 1867, they were selected by a student group today. There was an update to the exact shades in 1912, and since then the colors have stuck. That’s over 100 years of history right there!

What about LSU? Their colors are old gold and royal purple. Interestingly, these are both colors that are associated with royalty, wisdom, and wealth. However, this is not the reason why the colors were adopted. These colors were selected in 1893 after Charles Coates, football coach of the Tigers, bought his team gold and purple ribbon in order to spruce up their uniforms, which were gray at the time.

You also have the gray and scarlet colors of Ohio State, which were also chosen by a small group of students back in 1878. In Texas, their colors are white and burnt orange. They started to wear these colors a bit later on; in the 1920s. The reason they went for these colors is quite interesting! At the time, Clyde Littlefield was a coach and he located a Chicago-based mill that could create a dye that would not fade after washing.

The Longhorns then switched to a lighter shade of orange during the Depression. However, this color did not stick around for long, Darrell Royal brought back the famous burnt orange in the early 1960s.

As you can see, there is a lot of history behind the college colors that are worn at different college football teams today, and that shows why College Colors Day is such a significant day.

5 FUN FACTS ABOUT COLLEGE COLORS

1. Arkansas

   University of Arkansas’ students voted on their school colors in 1895.

2. University of Florida

   UF adopted its two colors as an homage to the two schools that merged together to form UF: University of Florida at Lake City (blue) and East Florida Seminary (orange and black).

3. Vanderbilt

   It’s said that Vanderbilt’s family chose the colors to represent his success in the coal industry (black) and his fortune (gold).

4. University of Miami

   For UM, the orange symbolizes the fruit of the tree, green represents the leaves and white, the blossoms.

5. Tennessee

   In 1889, a cluster of orange and white daisies was found growing on the grounds. Athletics association president Charles Moore liked the colors and adopted them as UT’s official colors.

COLLEGE COLORS DAY DATES