Name-a-Day Calendar, January 28: Fairfield Stags
Page 83 of 365
Chosen in: 1948
Chosen by: A vote of the Board of Trustees
Fairfield University of St. Robert Bellarmine was founded in 19421 and began playing sports a few years later. Wearing their school-color red uniforms and without an official nickname or mascot, they were usually called the Men in Red. The school only admitted men at the time, so there were no Women in Red.
Then, in 1948, the school’s Board of Trustees held a vote among themselves to determine a true identity for their university. The two names they considered were exclusively used to refer to male animals: “Stags” (male deer) and “Chanticleers” (the name of a rooster from The Canterbury Tales). “Stags” won out, mostly on account of etymology.
Fairfield University is a Roman Catholic university in Connecticut. It’s not located in Hartford but it has maintained ties to the Archdiocese of Hartford since its foundation. Red deer, the males of which are known as harts, often crossed the river at a ford where the city currently stands; the city was named for this and thus “Hartford” translates to “deer crossing”. This has associated the deer with several Connecticut products, from The Hartford insurance to these Fairfield Stags.
Fairfield began accepting women in 1970 and, of course, women’s athletics would follow. For whatever reason, these teams retained the “Stags” nickname despite its male gendering.
Half a century later, the name has stuck for both women and men. Both basketball teams play in the wonderful, brand new Leo D. Mahoney Arena.
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They’d drop the second half of this name in 1944 and become the Fairfield University they are today.