"The Red Devils"

The Dickinson football team traveled to George Washington University for a game on Saturday, October 25, 1930. The Dickinson Red and White were heavily outmatched in the end, but they held off George Washington throughout the first half. The score at half was GW 7 and Dickinson 6. Because of this show of grit and spirit against a superior team, a Washington writer from the Public Ledger dubbed the Dickinson team "the Red Devils."

Dickinson students apparently were taken with the name because in the Dickinsonian of the very next week (November 6, 1930), a headline on the next game, against the Pennsylvania Military College, read RED DEVILS OUTPLAY CADETS, BUT GAME ENDS IN 7-7 SCORE.

The flavor of the time really comes through in the actual articles in the Dickinsonian of Thursday, October 30, 1930.

GRIDDERS FIGHT ODDS BUT LOSE TO GEORGE WASHINGTON 27-6 "Displaying an offense that spoke volumes for the work being done this year by Coaches Griffith and McAndrews, the 'Red Devils' of Dickinson College succumbed to George Washington, by a 27-6 score on Saturday at Washington. Though outweighed by the Capital city gridders, whose line averaged 195 pounds, and the backs 185 pounds, the Dickinson team outfought the victors throughout the entire first half, until the sheer force of weight caused the worn out battlers to yield up a touchdown. The offense displayed was easily the strongest shown during the present campaign."

HIGHLIGHTS OF SATURDAY'S GAME "Many of us have acquired various 'nommes de guerre', some in the cradle and others when our shoulders were bowed. But it took 148 years before the sons of John Dickinson were awarded a moniker worthy of them. Because of their savage playing in the first half a Washington correspondent of the Public Ledger called our gridders, the "Red Devils".

And with that, Dickinson became the home of the Red Devils.