Much of the back story of how Millersville University selected black and gold as its school colors and Marauders as its mascot is lost to history, and like any good origin story, there is plenty of myth to cut through. Following extensive research in The Snapper, Touchstone yearbooks, newspapers and books, the following account is what we know can be known about Millersville's school colors and mascots. Part two of the story will focus on the evolution of logos and team uniforms.  
 
DON'T CALL US LAND PIRATES  

Before we dive into the archives, let's establish something. A marauder, at least as it represents Millersville University, is not a land pirate. Millersville's marauder is a pirate. Merriam-Webster's definition for a marauder is: one who roams from place to place making attacks and raids in search of plunder. The origin of the word dates to the 17th century Middle French word maraud which means rascal. Can a marauder be on land? Yes. Can a marauder be a pirate? Absolutely. The very first depiction of a marauder on a sports team uniform at Millersville came in the early 1960s on the men's basketball team's warm-up jackets. That rough logo is undoubtedly a pirate as it wears an eye patch and a tricorne hat adorned with the familiar skull and crossbones--the classic depiction of every 18th century pirate. More on this in part two of the story.
 
THE UNIQUENESS  OF MARAUDERS
Millersville University is one of only three four-year universities in the U.S. that uses Marauders as its mascot. The other two, Central State in Wilberforce, Ohio, and the University of Mary located in North Dakota also compete at the NCAA Division II level. Millersville can undoubtedly lay claim to being the first Marauders, however, as Mary was established in 1959 and Central State's origin story, while wonderfully historic and meaningful (and well worth a quick read) begins with its president Dr. Charles Wesley in 1947--11 years after the Marauders debuted at Millersville.  
 
THE ORIGIN STORY 
There is a legend that Millersville pulled its nickname from a Lancaster newspaper article describing the way the football team played. 
 
"The one that I am familiar with is the sportswriter story," said Dr. Richard Frerichs '64\'69M, who, in addition to a career as the dean of residents life and chair of the education department, served as PA announcer at football and basketball games for 40 years. "It read 'they ran through the opposing football team like a band of marauders.' 
 
Frerichs isn't the only one who has heard this story. Millersville recounted this story on its Twitter account, stating the line was written "around 1940."  
 
Bob Lehr '57 who is a lifelong Millersville resident, historian and pirate enthusiast knows the tale well. He recounts that it came from the famed 1940 season, the one that produced the only undefeated football team in Millersville's history. That was the team that the Washington Post referred to as the top small college team in the country. That season, Lehr and his father would travel to Gladfelter Field in Columbia where the Marauders played night games. The author of the now-famous alleged phrase wasn't just any sportswriter. It was famed Lancaster sports scribe George Kirchner, for whom a top Lancaster Hall of Fame award is now named. According to legend, Kirchner's descriptive writing also gave Manheim Township High School (Blue Streaks) and Solanco High School (Mules) mascots as well.  
 

The way the line is remembered and the way it was actually written don't quite match, however. The article that birthed this enduring tall tale ran in the Lancaster New Era on Nov. 14, 1940.  
 
"The old 'defeatist' attitude gone, the Marauders are now mauling their way through the opposition and right now they stand a chance of finishing unbeaten to give their Alma Mater one of its finest football records in history," wrote Kirchner. 
 
Clearly, there is a problem with the idea that this article by Kirchner gave Millersville its mascot. Not only does he capitalize Marauders in this statement (as its already a proper noun), he refers to the Marauders three times in this story alone when referencing the team. And research shows that Millersville was already using Marauders as a nickname at least four years before this story was ever written. Lehr even recalls that his interest in pirates was sparked when he purchased a Millersville football gameday program in 1940. On the cover of that program was a pirate. Case closed; myth busted. Kirchner did not coin the term. 
 
Exhaustive searches from Pennsylvania newspapers from 1900-1936 reveal that the first appearance of the Millersville Marauders in print outside of campus is in a Nov. 5, 1936 Harrisburg Evening News story previewing an upcoming football game against Shippensburg. The very same article, slightly reworded, appears the next day in the Lancaster Intelligencer Journal. The byline in the Intelligencer Journal reads "Special to the Intelligencer Journal," so it is likely that someone from Millersville wrote and submitted the story, much like the director of athletic communications (that's me) does today. The Evening News story reads: "Marino Intrieri, head coach of the Millersville Marauders, is well-known to Shippensburg fans, having coached the Red Raider line during the 1935 season." The Intelligencer Journal version includes: "The Marauders of Lancaster County come to the local lair with a record of two victories and two defeats, the latter will mean little when the opening whistle blows and the two teams swing into action."   
 
But the very first time Millersville Marauders is found in print is more than one month prior in the Oct. 1, 1936 edition of The Snapper.  
 
Plastered across the top of the sports page in bold letters is "M-V Marauders Set for Bloomsburg Saturday." The story opens with: "Saturday on the battle scarred Bloomsburg gridiron the curtain rises on another season of pig skin warfare for Millersville's Marauders when they tangle with Coach Bucheit's Huskies." 
   
This season preview story is the first verifiable reference to Millersville as the Marauders. In Snapper articles throughout the fall of 1936 and the winter of 1937, the football and basketball teams are both referred to extensively as Marauders. There was no official university announcement prior to this Oct. 1, 1936 reference and no fantastical story of a 1930s-era, fedora-wearing sportswriter punching the keys of his typewriter with an exaggerated description of a menacing Millersville running game. It seems as if it just appeared. From searching through the Lancaster Intelligencer Journal, Sunday News and New Era (yes, there were three newspapers in Lancaster), the Harrisburg Telegraph and Evening News and various newspapers from the area, it is evident that the word marauder was commonly used in the 1930s and was most often used to describe a criminal. A World War II plane, the Martin B26 was nicknamed the Marauder. Merrill's Marauders, the 5307th Composite Unit led by Frank Merrill, were a famous special operations unit that specialized in jungle warfare during World War II. The word marauder was evidently much more a part of the vernacular 80 to 100 years ago.  
 
Frerichs also heard that sports teams at Millersville all had different nicknames and the Marauders was the one to stick. That may be, but it is difficult to prove. Millersville University has an archive of The Snapper that dates to 1923 (the paper was then called The Tipster). From 1923 to the Oct. 1, 1936 edition, sports teams are commonly referred to as the Black and Gold aside from two occasions--Dec. 20, 1923 and February 1924--when teams were inexplicably called the Orange and Black. By October of 1924, it was back to Black and Gold. On Nov. 17, 1933, the football team was also called the Millersville Miracles once. The writer was likely referring to the surprise play of the team as it was 4-1 at the time under first-year head coach John Pucillo after going a combined 2-14-5 the previous three seasons. In a Nov. 1, 1935 article titled "M/V Gridders Surprise Highly-Touted Mansfield," the writer inexplicably refers to Millersville as the Snappers twice.  
 
"It was a sight for sore eyes to see the Snappers line, from end to end, playing heads up football..." And later, "As the quarter came to a close the Snappers started functioning." Not once before or after this article is Millersville referred to as the Snappers.  
 
Dennis Downey, author of the Millersville history book "We Sing to Thee," wrote that in the 1950s "the Marauders had been around for 20 years and became fixed as the college mascot." 
 
The timeframe for the origination of the Marauders moniker lines up with Downey's account, but Marauders was well-established long before the 1950s. By the 1937-38 Touchstone, one year after its first appearance in The Snapper and area newspapers, athletic teams were identified as Marauders in the season recaps.   
 
There's no definitive answer to the question of 'who named Millersville the Marauders?' The best bet may be that it grew organically among the student body and the fierceness, uniqueness and wonderful alliteration when paired with Millersville made Marauders stick.  
 
"WORTHY OF FIGHTING UNDER THE 'BLACK AND GOLD" 
How black and gold were selected as the school colors is also draped in mystery. But we have clues, and it is certain that black and gold came around long before Marauders. In the early years of Millersville, class pride was an important part of student life. Downey wrote that even into the 1940s that "fierce class loyalties made women's sports a vital component of campus life, as athletics in general continued to nurture a sense of school spirit and deep affection for the experience of attending Millersville." 
 
As athletics exploded in the post-World War II era with Millersville joining in the NAIA, Downey wrote that "Some alumni have bemoaned the loss of individual class identity after the war, as athletics wove a common fabric of school identity through intercollegiate competition." 
 
In creating these class identities, each would annually select class officers, a class cheer and yes, class colors. In the 1899 Wickersham, the earliest yearbook in the McNairy Library's digital archives, the senior class of 1899 chose its colors to be white, black and gold. The page of the yearbook is adorned with a flying pennant in black and gold. In 1901, the senior class voted for black and gold. Black and gold repeated as the selection in 1903, and in 1904, a poem includes the line "And recall those days of gladness 'Neath the gold and the black.'" 
​
Ashley Sherman, library technician at Millersville University noted that the color gold was used as an identifying symbol that represented the institution of Millersville State Normal School (MSNS) as a whole. The first concrete evidence of this is found in the 1902 Normal Journal which flatly states that "Gold, the official color of the school..." 

"I have not been able to find any information explaining why the color gold was chosen," said Sherman. "However, assuming that this color held some sort of importance to MSNS, I have three conjectures. The color gold either symbolized something relating to the nearby landscape, the philosophy of education, or religion. All three were important subjects at the time."

A 1905 poem about the maturation of a student refers to both football and the black and yellow color combination. 

"For the first week, don't you know, A Prep's as blue as indigo; All the same he's very green If he lets his blues be seen. When he's called on to recite He is either red or white; Foot-ball soon will pound him mellow In great spots of black and yellow; So, though lacking many a thing, He has his natural coloring."

This poem shows that even as early as 1905, the accepted colors for a Millersville student, and maybe more specifically, an athlete, was black and gold. 
 
Then, in the 1915 yearbook comes the first reference to colors tied to athletics. In the 1914 football season review story, the writer discussed rumors of the school abolishing football and replacing it with soccer because it was considered "unhuman." Included in this passage is: "...we are safe in saying that as long as this matter is left for the boys to decide, Millersville will be represented on the gridiron by teams worthy of fighting under 'the black and gold.'" The 1914-15 basketball team is referred to in similar fashion: "...ably sustained by those who fought both mentally and physically for the honor of the 'Black and Gold.'" And of the baseball team: "Landisville succumbed 8 to 6, due to hard hitting by the wearers of the black and gold." 
 
The senior class colors that year were maroon and in gold, making this the first time a clear distinction is made between sports teams' colors and class colors. From that point forward, sports teams at Millersville and black and gold were one in the same. With Marauders not adopted until what is believed to be 1936, Black and Gold served as the primary nickname for two decades. Downey wrote that in the 1930s "teams sported new school colors of black and gold," but it seems that just like Marauders was in use at least 20 years before it actually become official, so too were the black and gold.  

From a simple block M to the modern spirit mark, how those colors represented Millersville has evolved along with the sports played on campus, but black and gold have remained a constant for more than a century.