Bleg about the Orangemen

[Saxifrage]

For a very minor aside in a mEditedcript I'm writing about the origins of the Social Gospel movement in upstate New York, can I ask a question of our fellow Hoyas?

I'm interested in whether anybody can remember if, in the first days of the Big East, or earlier, there were any expressions of antagonism, even if only comic, from fans of Georgetown and the other Catholic schools, about playing a team with the highly Protestant (and possible to perceive as anti-Catholic) name of the Syracuse University Orangemen.

The Irish troubles were very much in the news in the 1970s, and while Georgetown's Catholicism wasn't as green Irish as some other school's (cough, cough, Notre Dame, cough, cough), it sure wasn't in line with Ian Paisley's Belfast Orange Protestants.

The Scotch-Irish Orange character of upstate New York was set, in good part, by the thousands of Protestant immigrants from Northern Ireland lured over to work on the Erie Canal in the early 1820s, and the name of the Syracuse sports team was a deliberate nod toward that local character as the school morphed from a Protestant seminary into its current incarnation.

Still, I can't find any written mention of it during the early Big East basketball days, and I wondered if anyone here remembers something or has come across a reference.

Thanks for any suggestions.

[seaweed]

no

[Nevada Hoya]

NO, we just hated them because they are the cuse, no religious or ethnic overtones.

[Saxifrage]

Oct 30, 2010 11:48:49 GMT -5 seaweed said:

no

Amazing, when you remember just how violent the situation in Ireland was at the time.

I wonder if that means that the school's general change of its teams' name from "the Orangemen" to "the Orange" was driven entirely by a desire to eliminate what was perceived in those days as the sexist embarrassment of the "-men" part, and none of the change motivated by a wish to separate the school from verbal implication with the Protestant side of the Belfast troubles.

[SFHoya99]

In those days? They changed to the Orange about three years ago.

[SirSaxa]

Until I read your post, saxifrage, I was unaware of any of that... at least, the NY part.
And I second Nevada's post... we just hated them because they are Syracuse. And we still do!

In the early days of the BE, I recall us having TWO big rivals. Cuse and the Johnnies.

[jgalt]

Add this to the long list of topics too intellectual to ever end up on a Cuse board/classroom

[Saxifrage]

Oct 30, 2010 12:15:16 GMT -5 SFHoya99 said:

In those days? They changed to the Orange about three years ago.

Really? I thought it was earlier. Regardless, the motivation for the name change seems merely to be the anti-sexist one, yes?

My understanding is that the "Orange" part of their name was never interpreted as having anything to do with the citrus fruit (instead of the influence on Great Britain of the Protestant Dutch prince, William of Orange) until late in the school's history. Their team mascot in the early 1970s was an American Indian, but I seem to remember reading that earlier mascots were supposed to be Northern Irish figures in orange vests--like what you might see as members of the Orange Order march in the Apprentice Boys parade in Belfast or Londonderry: the inverse, as it were, of Notre Dame's mascot.

Of course, now they're stuck with that baggy fruit suit, making the worst mascot in college sports.

[2ndRyan]

Never seen the Protestant Loyalist connection espoused.

The fanbase was always a toxic blend of upstate yahoo and Long Island smart-ass unlovable in its own right.

[HoyaChris]

I have obsessed over this rivalry for more than 30 years and this is the first time I have ever heard anyone suggest a religious aspect.

[EasyEd]

No.

[Saxifrage]

Oct 30, 2010 13:22:24 GMT -5 HoyaChris said:

I have obsessed over this rivalry for more than 30 years and this is the first time I have ever heard anyone suggest a religious aspect.

Thanks. This is all helpful. I didn’t remember there being any such religious and ethnic talk back in the day, but I wanted to make sure my memory was right: Even Syracuse University (still semi-officially Methodist) had forgotten its Irish Protestant roots by the time the Big East came along. And if the reigniting of the Irish troubles in the 1970s wasn’t enough to make anyone remember, nothing would be sufficient.

It all fits in with my general thesis about the ways in which American Protestantism developed without the direct European experience of having rejected Catholicism. Not that they weren’t anti-Catholics, of course, but it just wasn’t present to them in the way it was in Europe.

Man, was upstate New York religiously wild and woolly in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, from Joseph Smith’s Mormonism to Walter Rauschenbusch’s Social Gospel. “The Burned-Over District,” they called the key portion of the area.

Too bad Syracuse didn’t get burned over along the way.

[rosslynhoya]

The trouble with their "oh no, we named it after our school color" ignores the fact that there seem to be no contemporary accounts of why SU chose "orange" in the first place (and why did they have a problem with pea green and rose pink?). All of these websites, post-2001, just keep repeating other sites without adding any veracity to the discussion. The fact that something's on an SU website does not make it true.

[lichoya68]

point we kinda dont like that catholic school hmm villanova for that game they shot the lights out and took away pats national championship yeah now they arent jesuit but dont think that was the key... cuse is cuse i WAS at the first big east championship and all the hoyas fans loved we beat them cause .. they were cuse .. it was the first big east championship and i really probably didnt even know if they had a religious affiliation for real didnt know but i did know they had louie and bouie yup THAT i knew quite well WHAT a first big east championship tourney in providence ri yup THATS my take go hoyas beat cuse and all the catholic schools too i quess were the only jesuit school now with the bc traitors gone and hey dislike them almost as much as cuse cause they were traitors EVEN THO THEIR JESUIT so i think we judge at other things maybe some subconscious things but who believes in THAT stuff GO HOYAS BEAT CUSE AND NOVA AND ND AND THE HALL AND ST THATS SAINT JOHNS... AND ALL THE OTHERS TOOOOOOOOOOO

[lichoya68]

perhaps they chosoe orange because it was the ugliest color possible or perhaps since its halloween tommarow its the black and orange of halloween and maybe some devil worship there you never know but hoyas dislike cuse because they ARE CUSE go hoyas beat odu and then the rest ;D ;D ;D

[Admin]

Oct 30, 2010 13:29:44 GMT -5 pash said:

I tried to promote the rivalry earlier this year by inciting sectarian hatred along these lines, but Admin called me out on it.

SU Athletics' official explanation of why they adopted orange is that they were mocked roundly for wearing pink. I don't know whether there was any particularly religious animus between the two universities' fans in the Big East's early years, as it was before my time, but there doesn't seem to be much evidence of any. Nor does there seem to be any closer connection between Syracuse and the Orange Order than the small fact that the school was founded by Methodists and the color coincidence, if that's what it is.

It does seem like all of this would have been an obvious point of tension, as the Troubles were flaring up again during the Big East's first season of 1979. Maybe Syracuse people, being such ignorant rubes, are simply so unaware of history and the wider world that all of this just slipped by under the surface.

This is nonsense. Syracuse's colors have nothing to do with Northern Ireland any more than DePaul has an anti-religious mascot* or that a team called the Cincinnati Reds have Communist overtones. Sarcasm notwithstanding, this is not worth pursuing.

*FWIW--Depaul was originally named the "D-Men" for the letters worn by athletes. A writer misconstrued it and called them the Demons instead.

[SirSaxa]

Oct 30, 2010 15:27:15 GMT -5 Admin said:

*FWIW--Depaul was originally named the "D-Men" for the letters worn by athletes. A writer misconstrued it and called them the Demons instead.

I never knew that either. Wonder if it's true, or urban legend.

See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DePaul_Blue_Demons --Admin

[MassHoya]

Syracuse is the Orange because Losers was already taken.

[HoyaNyr320]

Oct 31, 2010 7:39:17 GMT -5 MassHoya said:

Syracuse is the Orange because Losers was already taken.

^^^
This

Perfect.