By: Matt Sugam, Columbia Athletics
NEW YORK—
"If you look good, you feel good. If you feel good, you play good."
Those words, made famous by "Primetime '' Deion Sanders, who's perm, shades and gaudy jewlery was only matched by the Hall of Famer's gamebreaking ability as a returner and shutdown cornerback skills while looking dapper in his team's jersey in the 1990s, still ring true today.
While today's millennial college athletes were a twinkle in their parents' eye when Sanders was one of the nation's biggest sports stars as a two-sport athlete in the NFL and MLB, they heed his advice.
"I've always been a uniform guy myself," Columbia senior captain
Justin Woodley said. "I'm a big [Deion Sanders philosophy], you look good, you feel good. You feel good, you play good. So, for me, I think it's pretty simple."
Woodley, along with his Lions teammates feel like they'll be looking good when Columbia (3-1, 0-1 Ivy League) hosts UPenn (2-2, 0-1 Ivy League) for Homecoming on Saturday at 1:30 p.m. When the Lions head out to Robert K. Kraft Field at Lawrence A. Wien Stadium, they'll be back in Columbia Blue for the first time in nearly a decade.
Before "Carolina Blue" was made famous by UNC's dominance as a college basketball blue blood, and Mack Brown's first stint as the football coach, Columbia Blue reigned college athletics.
The Columbia colors, light blue and white, were appropriated from the campus Philolexian and Peithologian Societies, the former claiming the blue and the latter the white, and were used as a combination as early as 1852. The particular shade of light blue became popularly known as Columbia Blue around the turn of the century and is in common usage today as a shade of blue.
Several other colleges claim "Columbia Blue" as one of their school colors.
"I really like these jerseys," senior safety
Ben Mathiasmeier said. "I've been saying this since I got here that if we were to match what UNC did with their jersey combos — it's what you think of with North Carolina, the first thing that comes in on is either Jordan, the brand, or North Carolina blue — Columbia blue is so similar in a sense that our ability to show that off, especially to recruits. It's so digitized nowadays with recruiting and it's such a tool that we could use to our benefit."
While the Ivy League's colors range from dark to bland, the Columbia blue pops off the screen compared to the rest of the Ancient Eight.
Since the football program began in 1870, Columbia has sported a variety of different uniforms and helmets, all within the university's color scheme of Light Blue and White. Typically, the program experienced uniform and helmet change upon the introduction of a new head coach.
After a pre-World War II-era which saw Columbia compete in classic light blue uniforms with a dark blue shoulder and four stripes down the center, Columbia first switched to the full light blue jerseys, white numbers and white pants under legendary coach Lou Little in 1952.
The school stuck with a variation of that color scheme until
Al Bagnoli became the head coach in 2015. Bagnoli introduced dark blue, pewter grey and anthracite colors into the current Lions' uniforms.
"It's a combination of a lot of things," Bagnoli said of the change for Homecoming. "Every school in this league has a tremendous history, longevity, number of seasons playing, impact on the game itself, how we know the game today. Anything you can do to kind of pay tribute to that backdrop of people before is a really neat thing to do.
"You're always trying to sell the 100-plus years that every school in this league has playing football, which is very unique. You're trying to accent that. You're trying to make sure they understand that they're carrying the torch for not only themselves, but people going all the way back in the 1800s. It's another way of trying to get them to understand the history, the traditions, the pageantry of the people before him, and how unique the school is and how unique the league is."
Since the modern-day helmet was introduced in the 1950s, Columbia has sported both light blue and white headgear with a variety of side logos including a lion, lion with paw, block C, modern lion, lion and block C combination, CU and white block C. Columbia has also worn helmets with script Columbia, the university seal and an interlocking CU.
From the 1950s to 1970, Columbia wore blank white helmets with a blue stripe. That changed in 1971 when head coach Frank Navarro introduced a blue lion logo on the side. Head coach Robert Naso introduced a light blue helmet during his first year in 1980. The lion mascot first appeared on the Columbia helmet in 2003 when Bob Shoop became head coach and coach Norries Wilson introduced a light blue C in 2006.
Bagnoli was the first coach to put the modern-day lion logo on the side of a white helmet. He also introduced the New York City skyline to the back of the helmets in 2018. But that too, will change Saturday.
Along with the Columbia blue tops, the team will also be wearing new lids. While the team has competed with the Lion logo on the helmet as of late, the Columbia numerals from 1961 will also be making its return.
"It's a really cool way to honor our tradition and where the program's been and where it is now," senior captain
Stew Newblatt said. "It's a very cool thing that we'll be doing, and should hopefully focus us a little bit on game day."
The jerseys are part of honoring the 1961 Ivy League Championship team on its 60th anniversary. White numerals and pants will go with the Columbia blue jerseys that have a white C on the neckline. Since Nike didn't have the original typeface of the numerals from the 1961 jerseys, they had to be replicated and recreated from scratch.
"You have to pick the timing of it so it makes sense, but I think it's absolutely the right thing to do. You want to pay homage to people before you who've had success and we're able to put up a banner," Bagnoli said. "I think our kids will certainly be excited and I think hopefully everybody will appreciate it, and what we're trying to do and the recognition that we're trying to put out to everybody."
Matt Sugam has been covering sports in the NYC Metropolitan area for over a decade. He has spent the last eight years covering college and professional sports as a stringer for the Associated Press, while also contributing to The New York Times, USA Today Network, NJ.com, and SNY.tv. He will be covering Lions Athletics for gocolumbialions.com while pursuing an M.S. in Strategic Communication at Columbia's School of Professional Studies. Follow him on Twitter @MattSugam
