Quote Originally Posted by 89rabbit View Post
No seriously. The 1919 team's jerseys have STATE on them. I have seen the picture in the 1919 yearbook. Over the years there have been times when there was nothing on the jerseys, there was also a time when the school was trying to change its name from South Dakota State College to South Dakota State University that we used SDSC and then SDSU on the jerseys (it was a political thing - our friends at USD didn't want the State to allow it), and for awhile they had Jacks written on them. But the majority of the time since 1919 the jerseys have had STATE on them. True story.


Bottom line we are not trying to copy Michigan State.
re: the "political thing" comment. When SDSU was called SDSC, there were occasions USD referred to itself as the State University of South Dakota and there are even some references to South Dakota's State University. (If my memory is accurate, the bronze plaque inside the main doors to USD's ID Weeks library -- the one where the year construction was completed, architects, prime contract, governor, board of regents etc are identified -- states State University of South Dakota.) Some USD old timers continue to call SDSU either "State" or "State College". As 89Rabbit noted, it's been State for a long, long time.

I think Michigan State can lay claim to the distinctive font used for "State" on its uniforms and other athletic gear. [However, it's possible to acquire a yellow and blue South Dakota State hat with "State" in a font quite similar to the font I tend to associate with the Spartans. I didn't realize until reading this thread that SDSU changes its uniforms and uses just "State" to simply bug certain NDSU fans. Who woulda guessed... ]