Name-a-Day Calendar, January 27: Evansville Purple Aces
Page 82 of 365
Chosen in: 1926
Chosen by: Men’s basketball coach John Harmon and Evansville Courier sports editor Dan Scism via Louisville men’s basketball coach Fred Enke
Evansville College’s first sports teams were known as the Pioneers. That’s the nickname their men’s basketball team took to Louisville for a weekend set against the Cardinals on February 6 and 7, 1925.
Evansville won the first game in a rout, 59-39, and Louisville coach Fred Enke was impressed. After the game, he retorted to Evansville coach John Harmon: “You didn’t have four aces up your sleeve; you had five!” Harmon loved this quote and relayed it to Dan Scism, the sports editor at the Evansville Courier, and the two agreed that “Aces” should overtake “Pioneers” as the nickname of Evansville’s sports teams. The next year, the school’s primary color, purple, was tacked onto the front of the name to form the unique “Purple Aces” identity the university still uses today.1
The mascot for the Purple Aces is cleverly named Ace Purple. He’s a dapper gent who gets sad when students leave campus for the summer.
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Evansville’s website adds that Scism was happy to switch from “Pioneers” to “Aces” because the latter was shorter and fit more easily in headlines, but it doesn’t mention how he felt when “Purple” was added onto the name, making it longer than it was in the first place.