VT colors

CHICAGO MAROON
PANTONE: PMS 208 C
HEX COLOR: #630031;
RGB: (99, 0, 49)
CMYK: (41, 100, 56, 48)

BURNT ORANGE
PANTONE: PMS 158 C
HEX COLOR: #CF4420;
RGB: (207, 69, 32)
CMYK: (13, 87, 100, 3)

Roanoke’s official colors are blue and gold, but as Maroon athletics kicked off more than 100 years ago, blue and gold uniforms were hard to find. As a result, the teams had to compete in the uniforms that were available – which were maroon.

Orange and blue were adopted as the University of Virginia’s official athletic colors at a mass student meeting in 1888. UVA athletic teams had previously worn silver gray and cardinal red, but those colors did not stand out on muddy football fields, prompting a student movement to change them.

In 1896, a committee at Virginia Tech selected burnt orange and Chicago maroon as the school’s official colors. The committee’s goal was to replace the original black and gray colors, which some say made athletic uniforms look like prison garb. The committee’s choice of colors was unique because no other college was using the combination of burnt orange and Chicago maroon at the time. The new colors were first worn in a football game against Roanoke College on October 26, 1896. 

In the 1970s, Radford adopted the nickname “Highlanders” for the athletic teams in celebration of the Scottish heritage of Southwest Virginia. In keeping with the Scottish theme, school colors were changed from purple and gray to the tartan plaid colors of red, white, blue, and green