Georgia Institute of Technology
Georgia
1885
In 1890 a Georgia Institute of Technology faculty committee selected university colors of old gold and white, which were first used in an 1891 football game. The colors became more popular after the success of the “Lucy Cobb incident” in 1893, when Georgia Tech students convinced all the coeds from the Lucy Cobb Institute who were attending a football game between Georgia Tech and the University of Georgia to wear old gold and white ribbons. Since the Lucy Cobb Institute was down the street from the University of Georgia and the men from UGA considered the coeds to be “their” girls, this coup by the Georgia Tech men enshrined the old gold and white school colors as a campus tradition essential to the irritation of their athletic rivals at the University of Georgia.
Citations in the World Almanac (listed by cover date; color information is from the previous year): old gold/white (1913-1935)
Although it may have been assigned earlier, the academic hood lining design for Georgia Institute of Technology is first cited in a 1918 Encyclopedia Americana article on academic costume written by Gardner Cotrell Leonard, the Director of the Intercollegiate Bureau of Academic Costume (IBAC). Leonard stated that the university had been assigned a hood lining that was old gold with a white chevron, a design that did not change in any IBAC list thereafter.