My understanding was that "Red Raiders" was derived from an old football rivalry with Cornell, where 'Gate would travel to Ithaca and "raid" the "red."  Perhaps someone with more of a tie to Colgate can shed additional light on this.

The Syracuse paper says that the name is being changed to eliminate a reference to Native Americans.  If either the above reason for the nickname or the one that Ed mentioned in his note is true, then clearly there is no ethnic reference intended (unless, of course, you consider Cornellians to have their own ethnicity).  Should we now anticipate that Cornell will decide to be known as something other than the "Big Red," just to be PC?

Todd Nielson
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