Athletics
Notre Dame's NCAA Division I teams are known as the Fighting Irish. This name was used in the early 1920s with respect to the football team and was popularized by alumnus Francis Wallace in his New York Daily News columns. The official colors of Notre Dame are gold and blue which are worn in competition by its athletic teams. In addition, the color green is often worn because of the Fighting Irish nickname. The Notre Dame Leprechaun is the mascot of the athletic teams. Created by Theodore W. Drake in 1964, the leprechaun was first used on the football pocket schedule and later on the football program covers. The leprechaun was featured on the cover of Time in November 1964 and gained national exposure.
The university offers 26 varsity sports, 13 each for men and women. Twenty-two of those teams compete in the Big East Conference, while football is Independent, both fencing teams are in the Midwest Fencing Conference, and the men's ice hockey team is in Hockey East. In September 2012, however, Notre Dame announced that it would leave the Big East and join the Atlantic Coast Conference for all sports except football and men's hockey, with the exact date of the conference move to be determined. The university marching band plays at home games for most of the sports. The band, which began in 1846 and has a claim as the oldest university band in continuous existence in the United States, was honored by the National Music Council as a "Landmark of American Music" during the United States Bicentennial. The band regularly plays the school's fight song the Notre Dame Victory March, which was named as the most played and most famous fight song by Northern Illinois Professor William Studwell. According to College Fight Songs: An Annotated Anthology published in 1998, the “Notre Dame Victory March” ranks as the greatest fight song of all time.
According to some analysts, Notre Dame promotes Muscular Christianity through its athletic programs.
Read more about this topic: University Of Notre Dame