The Cornell University Department of Athletics and Physical Education encourages and depends on your questions and input for CornellBigRed.com.
Q: When are schedules released for the upcoming seasons?
A: Generally, most schedules are released by the beginning of the academic season. Fall sports schedules are generally finalized during the summer months, some as early as a month or so after their previous season is complete. Winter sports are also finalized during the end of the summer or early fall months. Men's and women's basketball schedules are finalized by the Ivy League and released in mid-August. Spring sport schedules are usually finalized late in the fall.
Q: Do I need a ticket to attend Cornell sporting events?
A: Tickets are available for football, volleyball, men's and women's soccer, men's and women's basketball, wrestling, men's and women's ice hockey, men's and women's indoor track and field and men's and women's lacrosse. All other sports are free. Students are admitted free to football, men's basketball, wrestling and men's lacrosse with a valid student ID. Single game and season tickets for non-students are available up to game time by contacting the Big Red athletic ticket office (607-254-BEAR). The exception to all of those is men's hockey. Students are allowed to wait in line for a chance to purchase hockey tickets for the upcoming season starting in late Septemeber.
Q: Why is your nickname the Big Red?
A: The nickname "Big Red" for Cornell teams originated in 1905. The late Romeyn Berry '04, then a recent Cornell graduate, was writing the lyrics for a new football song. Since Cornell had no nickname at the time, Berry simply referred to Cornell as the "big red team" and it caught on. Berry was graduate manager of athletics from 1919 through 1935 and was recognized as an outstanding authority on Cornell, its traditions and personalities. He was a distinguished writer and newspaper columnist locally. For his musical composition Berry won $25. The song earned a spot in the Cornell Verses, joining rowing songs and other lyrics descriptive of Cornell life.
The Big, Red Team
See them plunging down to the goal
See the ruddy banners stream
Hear the crashing echoes roll
As we cheer for the big, red team
Yea! Yea! Yea!
Chorus
Cheer till the sound wakes the blue hills around
Make the scream of the north wind yield
To the strength of the yell from the men of Cornell
When the big, red team takes the field
Yea! Yea! Yea!
Q: What is your mascot?
A: Cornell has never had an official mascot, but early in the school's athletic history a bear took over as its most recognizable symbol.
The first live Cornell bear mascot appeared in 1915 during Cornell's undefeated and national championship football season. Since that time, there were three others.
The last edition - Touchdown IV - was never allowed on Schoellkopf Field despite strong publicity campaigns by the Cornell Daily Sun and undergraduate groups.
The bear was invited to Cleveland by the Cornell alumni in the city, and was then shipped in a dog cage, to Columbus, Ohio for the Ohio State-Cornell game. At this point, the Animal Protective League stepped in and decreed that the bear was to be let loose in the wilds of Western Pennsylvania.
The current mascot is a Cornell undergraduate who performs at various varsity athletic events, including at all football and men's ice hockey games.
Q: Why are your colors red and white?
The Cornell colors were actually established on the University's Inauguration Day on Oct. 7, 1868. The account from Morris Bishop's A History of Cornell follows:
At sunrise on Inauguration Day, said the New York Times envoy, "from all the hills poured forth delightful music, and every few minutes the thunder of artillery from the eastern hills responded to the booming of cannon from a lofty eminence on the west side of town." Students and citizens thronged to Library Hall, which was tastefully decorated with marble vases of flowers and a large cross covered with moss, entwined with myrtle. One the side wall, the motto of the new university was blazoned in evergreen letters, and behind the speakers the illustrious names of CORNELL and WHITE appeared in large white letters against artistically draped red flannel, on which stars cut out of silver paper were pinned at pleasing intervals. Thus, entirely unintentionally, the Cornell colors were established for all time, on the first Cornell banner.
Although the Cornell football team was defeated 12-6 in the 1898 Thanksgiving Day game by the University of Pennsylvania, the Big Red made quite an impression that day.
The team's colors impressed Herberton L. Williams, comptroller and general manager of Campbell Soup Co., who attended that game in Philadelphia.
The story is that Williams was impressed by the brilliance of Cornell's red and white uniforms and later insisted that the company adopt those colors for the labels on its cans. The company's original colors were black and orange. The new colors began appearing in 1899.
That decision has been a lasting one. There has been little change in the design of the basic labels and no change in their color since then.