Syracuse ditches ‘Orangemen,’ announces nickname, logo change

SYRACUSE, N.Y. (AP) — Say goodbye to the Orangemen — and the Orangewomen.

From now on, all of Syracuse University’s athletic teams will be known simply as the Orange and have a new, unified logo, an interlocking SU.

“We are the only school in the country that has orange as its primary color. We want to accentuate that fact,” director of athletics Jake Crouthamel said Tuesday at a press conference. He noted that Texas and Tennessee have a substantial amount of white to go with the orange in their uniforms.

The announcement came after two years of consultations with Nike, which supplies uniforms for men’s and women’s basketball, men’s lacrosse, and football. All 21 of Syracuse’s athletic teams will use the new mark.

“It standardizes what we do,” Crouthamel said. “We don’t have to order 14 different logos. We’ve had somewhere in the neighborhood of 19 or 20 logos that we’ve used on athletic apparel. Where’s the consistency?”

The new logo will incorporate a consistent color palette, using a brighter orange than the current version and a darker blue. The school’s colors have been orange and blue since 1890.

“We looked through media guides, and we found that the university has not had one single athletic logo since 1870, when it was founded,” said Sue Edson, director of athletic communications. “It’s pretty important to us.”

Especially for one reason.

“This is about identity,” said longtime equipment manager Kyle Fetterly, a member of the committee of coaches and school officials who made the decision. “Every time I see a navy blue hat with a yellow block ‘M’ on it, I know it’s Michigan. Every time I see a red hat with a cream-colored ‘A’ on it, I know it’s Alabama.

“Everybody I talk to around town refers to us at SU, so why isn’t it SU?” It’s about time.”

The football team will be the first to showcase the new logo and colors in the fall, and Crouthamel said the large ‘S’ over the basketball on the hoops uniforms would disappear next season.

“We will eventually get into the new look,” Crouthamel said. “It’s going to take some amount of time. We’ll work our way through it.”

Nike also has done similar work for the University of Oregon, the University of Washington, Miami, and Kentucky.

Copyright 2004 Associated Press.