Rutgers-C changes nickname to Scarlet Raptors · Pinstripes and Polyester

Genre

Clipping

Creator

Wolfe, Jeff

Date

May 2, 1997

Publication

Courier-Post

Place of Publication

Cherry Hill, NJ

Pages

1E

Subject

Athletics

Transcript

Rutgers-C changes nickname to Scarlet Raptors
Scarlet letters: All three schools in the Rutgers University system now have the word Scarlet in their nicknames.
By JEFF WOLFE

Courier-Post Staff

It has been a year of change for the Rutgers-Camden athletic department. In January, the men's basketball team won a game, breaking the longest NCAA all-division losing streak in history at 117 games, and now the university's athletic teams no longer will be known as the Pioneers.

It was announced Thursday that Rutgers-Camden will be known as the Scarlet Raptors. To parallel Rutgers at New Brunswick, which is known as the Scarlet Knights, Rutgers-Newark also has changed its name from the Red Raiders to the Scarlet Raiders.

The Raptors part of the name apparently will be unique to Rutgers-Camden.

"As far as I can tell by searching on the Internet, we are the only college in the U.S. to be called the Raptors," said Cal Maradonna, the Rutgers-Camden associate provost for student life who was involved in the nickname discussions.

While Raptors may be a different name, the choice wasn't a quick one.

"We've talking about this the past couple of years," Maradonna said. "Our previous nickname was the Pioneers and the students were never really excited about it. Widener and William Paterson were also known as the Pioneers.

"We always had trouble with Pioneer stuff in the bookstore. It would never really sell."

The timing was also right for Rutgers-Camden because Rutgers at New Brunswick had contracted a company to design new logos for each of the three schools.

"It was a perfect time to change ours and get a professional logo done," Maradonna said. "We wanted something different that would still go along with the Knights. A Raptor is really a bird of prey. We had a whole group of people kicking a lot of names around and everybody liked it.

"It's kind of a new beginning."

Language

English