{"id":6538,"date":"2017-12-01T16:45:06","date_gmt":"2017-12-01T21:45:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/groups.etown.edu\/news\/?p=6538"},"modified":"2017-12-05T15:21:03","modified_gmt":"2017-12-05T20:21:03","slug":"from-undead-to-uncaged-the-mascots-of-elizabethtown-college","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/2017\/12\/01\/from-undead-to-uncaged-the-mascots-of-elizabethtown-college\/","title":{"rendered":"From undead to uncaged: The mascots of Elizabethtown College"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>For current Elizabethtown College students, it might be hard to imagine a time when \u201cBlue Jays Flock Together,\u201d \u201cTake Flight\u201d and \u201cBlue Jays, Always\u201d were absent from campus vernacular.<\/p>\n

In the early 1900s, however, \u201cGalloping Grey Ghosts\u201d and \u201cPhantoms\u201d floated through the College\u2019s facilities. These sporty specters haunted our halls clad in cleats, basketball <\/a>jerseys and shin guards\u2014not the spookiest spirits, but intimidating enough to handle intercollegiate competition.<\/p>\n

Up until 1945, the Ghosts lurked in our classrooms and dormitories, with no definitive explanation for why they were galloping, grey or ghosts. So, what happened to them? Why don\u2019t students of 2017 say \u201cGrey Ghosts Gallop Together\u201d or \u201cGrey Ghosts, Always (In Life and Death)\u201d?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s all because a living, breathing animal swooped in and <\/a>made its nest in our campus\u2019 history.<\/p>\n

During the 1945\u20131946 school year, E-town students were invited to submit suggestions for a new athletic mascot. As you can probably guess, the Blue Jay entered the fray and progressed to the final round of voting by the student body.<\/p>\n

E-town adopted the Blue Jay as its new mascot, exorcising the Galloping Grey Ghosts from campus once and for all.<\/p>\n

Sports teams officially adopted the name in 1947, when <\/a>Director of Athletics Ira Herr dubbed the men\u2019s basketball team \u201cBlue Jays.\u201d To differentiate the men\u2019s and women\u2019s teams, the Lady Jays were originally called \u201cBlue Birds,\u201d though the name did not last.<\/p>\n

The magnificent Blue Jay did not make its first public appearance until 1950, however, when C. Frederick Horbach released its inaugural design. Horbach \u201953, a history major and Student Senate president, exaggerated the bird\u2019s already-dramatic head and tail plumage. He also <\/a>anthropomorphized the Jay, clothing it in Oxfords and a blocky \u201cE\u201d turtleneck sweater.<\/p>\n

The conservative attire did not detract from the bird\u2019s vibrant colors, which were partially the reason it was adopted as mascot. As an April 1950 article in the Etownian stated \u201cWith its blue body and grey and white breast, the blue jay wears the colors of the school, and with its well-known fighting spirit characterizes the efforts shown by our teams in competition.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since then, E-town\u2019s Blue Jay has plucked and preened its way through various designs.<\/p>\n

\n

… the blue jay wears the colors of the school…”<\/h2>\n<\/blockquote>\n

<\/a>After a stint as the Fighting Jay\u2014an angry-looking bird with fists raised and eyes narrowed\u2014today\u2019s Blue Jay has become a recognizable and beloved figure on campus and beyond. Its visage is plastered across the school\u2014on College Store wares, throughout Thompson Gymnasium and hiding across a smattering of promotional admissions brochures like a blue-and-grey avian adaption of \u2018Where\u2019s Waldo.\u2019<\/p>\n

The school even invested in its own larger-than-life Blue Jay. The mascot costume commonly seen at athletic and <\/a>campuswide events was made by Pierre\u2019s Costumes, a company owned by Rich Williamson \u201987. This rendition of the Blue Jay was dedicated before the men\u2019s soccer game on Homecoming Day 2005. The sweater-and-Oxford-wearing version of the 1950s now opts for a minimalist athleisure look, sporting a jersey and galumphing shoeless across campus.<\/p>\n

As mentioned in the early Etownian article, \u201cAs the tiger symbolizes Princeton, the bulldog, Yale, so Mr. Blue Jay stands for the spirit and rivalry consistent at E-town!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For current Elizabethtown College students, it might be hard to imagine a time when \u201cBlue Jays Flock Together,\u201d \u201cTake Flight\u201d and \u201cBlue Jays, Always\u201d were absent from campus vernacular. In the early 1900s, however, \u201cGalloping Grey Ghosts\u201d and \u201cPhantoms\u201d floated through the College\u2019s facilities. These sporty specters haunted our halls clad in cleats, basketball jerseys […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":96,"featured_media":6620,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[490,1128],"class_list":["post-6538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-community","tag-achievements-2","tag-feature","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/96"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6538"}],"version-history":[{"count":83,"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6538\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6671,"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6538\/revisions\/6671"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}