Name-a-Day Calendar, June 27: Providence Friars
Page 233 of 365
Chosen in: First used in 1929; became commonplace in 1932
Chosen by: A sportswriter for the Providence Journal, likely influenced by alumnus John E. Farrell
Providence College was founded by the Dominican Order of the Catholic faith in 1917.1 Thus, when intercollegiate athletics began in 1920, the school called its teams the Dominicans, though Providence notes that “Cardinals” was another common early nickname, as were the school’s colors: “White and Black” or “Black and White”.
Sometime in the mid-1920s, graduate athletics manager John E. Farrell joined the Providence baseball team on a road trip to Dartmouth. There, Dartmouth’s Green Key Society assisted the team in finding accommodations, which impressed Farrell enough to start a nearly identical association at Providence. He called it the Friar Club because the Dominican Order is a mendicant Catholic order whose members are known as friars.
The generally accepted origin of the “Friars” nickname is that it eventually spawned from the name of the Friar Club. The first confirmed usage of “Friars” as a nickname for Providence’s sports teams came on April 9, 1929, in a Providence Journal baseball season preview. By 1932, it was everywhere.
The history of mascots at Providence includes Dalmatians, both live and costumed, but their current mascot is a costumed Friar.
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Fun with etymology, which I assume you’ll find interesting given you’re reading the 233rd entry in a yearlong series on etymology: the Dominican Order and the Dominican Republic don’t really have anything to do with each other except for that they were both named for Saint Dominic, who founded the Dominican Order in 1216. Santo Domingo, the capital city of the Dominican Republic, is named as a Hispanicization of “Saint Dominic”. The majority of the Dominican Republic is Catholic, but (unless I’m misreading something, which is entirely possible), the Dominican Order has no foothold in the country.