Imagine if you will, LSU in blue and white. No purple jerseys. No gold helmets. No Tiger Stadium filled with two of the most recognizable colors in college sports. No generations of LSU fans dressed in purple and gold on Saturday nights.

It sounds impossible today, but LSU could have looked very different.

According to Charles E. Coates, the professor who organized and coached LSU’s first football team, blue and white had actually been designated as LSU’s colors years earlier. Yet by the end of 1893, purple and gold had taken their place.

The story of how that happened involves LSU’s first baseball team, its first football team, a future Louisiana governor and, in true Louisiana fashion, Mardi Gras.

LSU Was Supposed to Be Blue and White

The blue and white story comes directly from Coates, one of the most important figures in the early history of LSU athletics.

In a 1937 letter, Coates recalled that former LSU president David F. Boyd returned to the university several years after his final term as president and was surprised to discover LSU using purple and gold.

Boyd had led LSU from 1865 to 1880 and again from 1884 to 1886. According to Coates, Boyd distinctly remembered having designated blue and white as LSU’s colors years earlier.

Whatever Boyd had intended, those colors apparently never became firmly established.

By the time LSU began competing in intercollegiate athletics in 1893, another combination was about to take over.

Baseball May Have Worn Purple and Gold First

LSU’s first intercollegiate athletic contest was not football.

It was baseball.

On May 13, 1893, LSU played Tulane in baseball. LSU won 10-8 in what the university recognizes as its first intercollegiate athletic competition.

According to LSU’s historical records, team captain E.B. Young selected Old Gold and Purple for the uniforms worn in that game.

That means LSU baseball appears to have been the first Tiger team to wear the colors that would eventually become synonymous with the university.

But several months later, LSU football created the story that would forever connect purple and gold with Louisiana and Mardi Gras.

LSU Goes Shopping for Its First Football Game

LSU prepared to play the first football game in school history on November 25, 1893.

Coates was LSU’s coach as well as a chemistry professor at the university. His players had no real football uniforms, and Coates wanted something colorful to help identify the LSU team.

So he went shopping.

Coates later recalled going to Reymond’s Store at the corner of Third and Main streets in Baton Rouge with quarterback Ruffin Pleasant and several others. Pleasant was LSU’s first football captain and would later become governor of Louisiana.

They wanted ribbon to create colors for the team.

There was just one problem.

Nobody seemed to know what LSU’s colors were.

That is where Mardi Gras entered the story.

Mardi Gras Gives LSU Its Colors

Reymond’s Store was stocking ribbon for the upcoming Carnival season.

The traditional Mardi Gras colors were purple, green and gold.

The store had purple ribbon.

It had gold ribbon.

But its shipment of green had not arrived.

So Coates and Pleasant bought the purple and gold.

The ribbon was made into rosettes and badges for LSU’s football team. The Tigers wore them with their gray jerseys when they took the field for their first football game.

Coates remembered liking the combination of purple and old gold. LSU stuck with it.

More than 130 years later, it still has.

What If the Green Ribbon Had Arrived?

One of the most fascinating parts of the story is thinking about what might have happened if that shipment had arrived on time.

The store was stocking purple, green and gold because those were the colors associated with Mardi Gras.

If green had been sitting beside the purple and gold when Coates entered the store, would LSU have selected all three?

Nobody can know.

What we do know is that the missing green left Coates with a combination that looked good together and already carried a strong connection to Louisiana culture.

Purple and gold were not random colors. They were two of the three Mardi Gras colors.

The Krewe of Rex had selected purple, green and gold as the official Mardi Gras colors in 1872. Their symbolic meanings were later established as purple for justice, green for faith and gold for power.

LSU ended up with justice and power.

It is difficult to imagine a more appropriate color combination for the Tigers.

So Who Really Gave LSU Purple and Gold?

There is one problem with the famous football story.

LSU baseball apparently beat football to it.

LSU’s own historical accounts acknowledge the discrepancy.

E.B. Young reportedly selected Old Gold and Purple for LSU’s baseball uniforms in the spring of 1893. Months later, Coates and Pleasant independently selected purple and gold ribbon while preparing for LSU’s first football game.

Both stories come from LSU’s historical record, and there is no need to force one to replace the other.

The most accurate way to tell the story is that LSU baseball appears to have been the first university team to wear purple and gold, while the football team helped establish the colors as an LSU tradition later that same year.

And football supplied the unforgettable Mardi Gras story.

The important year is 1893.

That was when purple and gold became LSU colors.

Royal Purple and Old Gold

The traditional names of LSU’s colors are Royal Purple and Old Gold.

More than a century later, LSU maintains precise standards for its colors. The university’s official purple is Pantone 268, represented digitally as #461D7C. Its official gold is Pantone 123, represented digitally as #FDD023.

Uniform shades and materials have naturally changed over more than a century of athletics, but the fundamental identity has remained the same.

Purple and gold.

Put those two colors together and there is little doubt what they represent.

LSU.

From Pieces of Ribbon to an LSU Tradition

What happened in 1893 could not have seemed particularly important at the time.

Young was choosing colors for a baseball uniform.

Coates and Pleasant were buying ribbon for a football team that had never played a game.

Nobody involved could have imagined what LSU athletics would eventually become.

They could not have imagined Tiger Stadium packed with more than 100,000 people.

They could not have imagined national championships, Heisman Trophy winners, the Golden Band from Tigerland or generations of Louisiana families planning entire Saturdays around LSU football.

Yet the colors chosen during those earliest days survived all of it.

LSU changed campuses. Stadiums were built. Athletic programs grew. Traditions were created. Generations of players and coaches came and went.

Purple and gold remained.

LSU Could Have Looked Very Different

That is what makes the story so good.

LSU could have been blue and white.

David Boyd apparently believed it was.

LSU might even have ended up with all three Mardi Gras colors if the famous green ribbon shipment had arrived before Coates went shopping.

Instead, history gave LSU something better.

A baseball captain selected purple and gold.

A football coach and future Louisiana governor walked into a Baton Rouge store looking for ribbon.

Mardi Gras supplied the colors.

And the green had not arrived.

Out of those circumstances came one of the most recognizable identities in college sports.

Royal Purple and Old Gold.

More than 130 years later, they are more than LSU’s school colors.

They are Louisiana colors.

They are Saturday night colors.

They are Tiger colors.