Name-a-Day Calendar, September 6: Tulane Green Wave
Page 304 of 365
Chosen in: 1920
Chosen by: Earl Sparling, editor of the Tulane Hullabaloo student newspaper
Many don’t know this, but what is now Tulane University was at one point the original University of Louisiana. It was founded as the public Medical College of Louisiana in 1834 and was renamed the University of Louisiana in 1847. Then some retail magnate named Paul Tulane started donating a bunch of land to the university, so the State of Louisiana eventually just gave his educational fund control of the entire institution. This privatized a state institution, which is rare, and renamed the school the Tulane University of Louisiana; both swaps occurred in 1884.
Intercollegiate athletics didn’t take off at Tulane until the football team debuted in 1893, so no one ever got to see their teams play with “Louisiana” across their chests. From their first kickoff against the Southern Athletic Club on November 18 of that year, they were known by their school colors, Olive and Blue.1
This persisted until 1919, when the Tulane Weekly, one of multiple student newspapers the university had at the time, decided that actually the football team was nicknamed the Greenbacks. This became commonplace almost immediately, but its time in the sun would be short. On October 20, 1920, the Tulane Hullabaloo, a different student newspaper (and the one that survived to the present day), gave us the “Green Wave” nickname Tulane still uses today.
It came from Earl Sparling, the paper’s lead editor. He wrote a song about the football team titled “The Rolling Green Wave” and printed it in the newspaper. Here it is in its entirety.
Roll, Green Wave, roll them down the field!
Hold, Green Wave, that line must never yield!
When those Greenbacks go charging thru the line,
They’re bound for Victory.
Hail Green Wave, for you we give a cheer.
Hail Green Wave, for you we have no fear.
So ev’ry man on ev’ry play,
And then we’ll win the game today!
Hurrah for Old Tulane!
You’ll notice “Greenbacks” also makes an appearance in this song. It’s unclear whether Sparling intended for “Green Wave” to overtake “Greenbacks” as the nickname for Tulane athletics, but gradually, that’s exactly what happened. By 1923, it had completely overtaken “Greenbacks” and the now-antiquated “Olive and Blue” as the primary nickname for football and every other sports team at Tulane.
Since 1998, Tulane’s mascot has been a costumed pelican named Riptide. His head was briefly kidnapped in 2015.
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Tulane played LSU the next week in the first true “intercollegiate” football game for both schools (and the first ever game for LSU). Tulane walloped them, 34-0.