The College of Virginia Cavaliers share a nickname with the Cleveland Cavaliers NBA franchise but that is in which the similarities finish. The rationalization for the College of Virginia Cavaliers nickname in fact requires a story of historical importance to the location.
Found in Charlottesville, Virginia the school with a complete university student inhabitants of near to 20,000 is frequently referred to merely as UVA for quick (dependent on the post office state abbreviation VA for Virginia). The orange and navy blue now worn by the Cavaliers initially went into effect in 1888 when athletic teams representing the faculty utilized to sq. off with community YMCA teams for deficiency of additional formal competition. Several persons are intrigued to learn that in the earliest days of collegiate athletics participating in online games against community YMCA teams was the norm all more than the place. In point, the University of Kentucky basketball software that at present has the most wins of any school staff in heritage started their good results with a solitary victory in the 1903 season from a YMCA squad (the Uk crew finished a disappointing 1-2 in that very first year).
The origin of the Cavaliers nickname comes from what was going on in this region of the globe through the seventeenth century when England was involved in a civil war that pitted supporters of the Parliamentary process of authorities versus King Charles I who asserted absolute ability in terms of rule. The use of the phrase Cavalier predates the formation of the United States of The united states with a very likewise spelled version of the phrase being applied by William Shakespeare in his famed Henry IV participate in. Shakespeare chose the word to explain a swashbuckler who was not not like the latest University of Virginia mascot that is a sword wielding fellow on horseback. Prior to becoming penned by Shakespeare in the last decades of the sixteenth century the historic character of the word Cavaliers dates back to the Spanish term caballeros (translation: horseman) which is basically a derivation of the Latin expression caballarius -which has a comparable that means as the Spanish phrase.
With a sound basis of the etymology driving the term Cavaliers it is critical to understand how it relates to the Virginia application in Charlottesville. Right before the days of the American Groundbreaking War the modern day condition of Virginia was identified as the Commonwealth of Virginia. The Commonwealth of Virginia had a standing of currently being household to a fantastic many loyalists that ended up incredibly supportive of the British Crown. When the College of Virginia officially took on the title the Virginia Cavaliers in 1923 it was to fork out homage to a bygone period when during the tumultuous seventeenth century British Civil War the superior persons of the Commonwealth of Virginia aligned themselves with the Royalist supporters who had been generally referred to as Cavaliers.
The subsequent time you are seeing the University of Virginia Cavaliers sq. off versus the University of North Carolina Tar Heels (the oldest rivalry in the South – courting back again to 1892) experience cost-free lean above to a buddy and impress him with your comprehensive know-how of the seventeenth century British Civil War and the subsequent function that era played in the eventual choice of the UVA Cavaliers nickname.