Basketball: Tigers' threads: History of the orange and black

When junior forward Ian Hummer went for a layup or pulled up for a jumper during the 2010-11 season, he did so in a No. 34 jersey very similar to the one his father, Ed Hummer ’67, wore over four decades ago.

The jerseys’ overall similarity is striking. The fonts of the word ‘Princeton’ and the uniform number are nearly the same, and the design of the arced letters over the large, rigid number is close to identical. The combination of orange and black over the white backdrop gives the two jerseys the same unmistakable feel, suggesting that maybe not much has changed.

The straps over Ed’s shoulders, however, are much thinner than those over Ian’s. On Ed’s jersey, black outlines enclose orange lettering; on Ian’s, it’s the opposite. Ed’s shorts are much shorter, and his jersey lacks the iconic Nike swoosh that his son sports. These subtle nuances — plus the fact that this year’s Tigers already have completely different jerseys, much as last year’s were completely different from the ones the 2009-10 team wore — show that the design of the Princeton basketball jersey is, in fact, anything but static.

When the first-ever Princeton basketball team took the court against “N.J. State Schools” on Jan. 26, 1901, their uniforms bore no indication of the school they represented. This was not standard athletic practice at the time — the more established football and baseball teams, for example, both wore their school’s name across their shirts. But the first basketball Tigers wore high-laced black shoes, long black pants with tight belts and cotton black tank tops with no writing.

A decade later, the jerseys identified the team, though in a barely recognizable fashion. In addition to light laced shoes, high black socks and beige cargo shorts with a belt, the 1911-12 Tigers — who played exactly a century before the current team — still wore black tank tops, with the letters ‘PTBB’ barely visible.

Over the next few decades, the basketball jersey underwent constant revision as it sought to best represent Princeton. By the 1921-22 season, the jersey was white and contained a large black letter ‘P’ in the middle, with a small black ‘B’ on either side of it. By the next decade, the 1931-32 Tigers had adapted a white jersey with two black horizontal stripes and a large ‘P’ in between.

Later in the decade, the 1939-40 team — which also experienced the introduction of short, black athletic shorts — finally wore the entire word ‘Princeton’ on their white jerseys. The thin black letters were printed in between two black horizontal stripes and the players’ uniform numbers appeared in very small print on top of the top stripe.

But just over a decade later, the 1951-52 team had abandoned sporting the Princeton name and instead wore white jerseys with two black and orange stripes and the large black uniform number. This design lasted through the mid-1960s and in the decades since, the changes have been less notable — mainly color inversions, font or size changes and changing between curved and straight writing.

One aspect to change drastically in recent decades is the length of the shorts. Players from Bill Bradley ’65 to former head coach John Thompson III ’88 wore the classic short and tight shorts, but by the time former head coach Sydney Johnson ’97 and current head coach Mitch Henderson ’98 were playing, the team had adapted to looser and longer model.

Though the jersey of the much-younger women’s team has not changed significantly since the early 1980s, recent models are much different than the threads from the debut 1971-72 season. While the men’s and women’s teams currently wear very similar jerseys, that was not always the case.

In its inaugural season, the women wore t-shirts with their uniform numbers printed prominently in the middle, with the word ‘Princeton’ in small block letters above. The jerseys were similar up until 1979 when the font used for the school’s name was changed to a small cursive type. By 1982, the team wore jerseys that closely resembled the men’s, and it has remained similar ever since.

Even today, the basketball teams do not wear the same jersey each year, or even each game. In 2006, Princeton became the first Ivy League school to sign a contract with Nike. The company supplies the teams with new jerseys each year.

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“Nike makes a great product, and year after year they improve the weight and comfortability of their product,” women’s head coach Courtney Banghart said in an email.

According to Banghart, the women wear a white set for home games and either a black set or an orange set for away games. Henderson said the men’s team has only two jerseys, one white and one black. During the non-league season, the Tigers wear white at home and black on the road, but once Ivy League play begins they wear white on Fridays and black on Saturdays at home, and vice versa on the road.

Henderson said this allows the team to avoid “scrambling to wash one set” between the Friday and Saturday matches, a policy followed by the rest of the Ancient Eight teams.

“I really liked the uniforms I wore while playing at Princeton and definitely have some special memories in them, but they probably wouldn’t appeal too much to the players today,” Henderson said in an email. “Uniforms in college sports are big business these days, and it’s all about appealing to the players wearing them.”

Senior guard and co-captain Doug Davis echoed Banghart, noting that the jerseys these past two years have been better fit to each individual player than the more “traditional-style” jerseys he wore in his freshman and sophomore years. Henderson added that the letters and numbers on the current uniforms are embroidered, giving them an “authentic feel.”

"They are pretty tight fitting and have Princeton stitched on the front, and there is a Nike symbol on the front to signify our sponsor," Hummer said in an email. "My favorite jersey is probably the white ones because since we wear them at home, seeing the white jerseys always reminds me of Jadwin.

But Davis said that, of the team’s two current models, he prefers the black set worn on the road.

“I just think that they look sicker, especially with the orange and letters and all-black socks,” Davis said in an email. “Plus I think I personally look better in black (lol).”

Historical photos came from the Bric-a-Brac collection and the Office of Athletic Communications Records from the Princeton University Archives.