Villanova Playing Syracuse Orangemen

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Hello,

Each year Orangemen parade in order to reaffirm their private business relationships and religious animosities towards Catholics. In Syracuse, New York, an American college has no business promoting the religious sectarian celebration of Prince William of Orange’s 1690 Battle of the Boyne victory over Catholic King James II. In these uncertain times the colors of Syracuse University serve only to remind Americans of every religion that hatred and violence are alive and well in the world and are well financed. Orangemen collector’s items – jersey, hats, caps, t-shirts, rings – all betoken a heritage of hatred that must be dispersed in our free nation. We cannot continue to foster prejudice in this our land of liberty. Ignorance is no excuse for allowing a silent bigotry to continue. The story of how orange was adopted as the color of Syracuse University is described incorrectly on the Syracuse website at : http://www.syr.edu/aboutsu/memorabilia/orange.html The reasoning was first reported in June 1940, 50 years after it happened.in 1890. The weaver of the tale was one Frank J. Marion, a second rate movie director who had graduated from Syracuse when it was still primarily a struggling Methodist University leaning heavily on evangelical protestant curriculums. Marion claimed responsibility for the change from the colors which had been pink and blue. His story is told with a nostalgic yearning for the days of his youth. His story goes that the school won a track meet but the students couldn’t “whoop it up” because their colors were pink and blue. He wondered what kind of “whoopee” can be made with pink and blue. Monday morning he went with a gang of others to see the chancellor in his office. Chancellor Sims was an old man and sympathetic. He agreed that pink and blue were not very suitable colors. Professor was named to find new colors. Clark consulted Baird’s manual, then the authority on college matters, to see what combinations of orange had already been taken. Orange alone was not claimed by any school and was Syracuse’s for the taking. It was adopted unanimously by the committee, the faculty, the Alumni Association, and finally the trustees. For over 100 years the New York University now known as Syracuse has displayed and encouraged a sectarian, anti-Catholic and thoroughly un-American symbol of religious war and persecution in calling its sports teams and alumni Orangemen. It is an insult to Americans, Catholics and all free peoples that Syracuse University should continue to display their war colors and symbols of bloody conquest while taking money from the public funds. It is an oversight, I am sure, that the partisan symbols of a backwoods sect should persist into the 21st Century New York University system – but it is no excuse to allow it to continue. Orangemen to this day cause untold suffering and exert violent intent on people in Northern Ireland, Scotland, some parts of England, Canada and even in the United States. This cannot stand and should be abolished immediately. Sincerely,

Alfred Brock40047 Cambridge 102Canton MI [email protected]