Before Penn Staters bled blue and white, they donned pink and black.
In 1887, nearly three decades after the institution enrolled its first students, a committee of students representing the sophomore, junior and senior classes was appointed to discuss solid and combination colors to represent the Pennsylvania State College (PSC), the official name at the time of the institution. The committee’s selections were then to be presented to and voted upon by the student body.
An excerpt of the October 1887 edition of The Free Lance, a predecessor of The Daily Collegian, reads:
“Of the colors presented the combination dark pink and black was unanimously adopted by the students.”
It was an era when many institutions of higher education across the country were proclaiming their own college colors, presumedly to distinguish athletic teams from one another on the playing field as intercollegiate competitions became more prominent. Penn State organized its first football team in 1887, playing — and winning — two games that year, both against Bucknell University.
Other organized sports at PSC in the late 1880s included baseball, cricket, tennis and general athletics — now known as track and field. One of the earliest reports of a PSC team wearing the newly adopted colors appeared in the March 1888 edition of The Free Lance:
“Your local editors thought the interest in baseball and athletic sports was in general flagging, but this is not the case. The truth is the local editors have not had enough interest in those sports to inquire about them. What would have been our surprise if we had not known before that the baseball team will make its debut in brand new suits which were adopted at the club’s last meeting. It shall consist of a cap of the college colors, a black jersey, a pink belt, white pants and black stockings.”