Johns Hopkins Blue Jays
Photograph by Zeitfixiereron Flickr.
Hopkins lacrosse rivals include Princeton University, Syracuse University, the University Saint Johns of Virginia, and a budding rivalry with Duke University due to intense recent competition, including one-goal victories over the Blue Devils in both the 2005 Johns Hopkins Blue Jays and 2007 NCAA Championships and in the NCAA semifinals in the 2008; its primary intrastate rivals are Loyola College, Towson University, the United States Naval Academy, and the University of Maryland. The Lacrosse Museum and National Hall of Fame, governed by US Lacrosse, is located on the Homewood campus and Johns Hopkins Blue Jays is adjacent to Homewood Field.
Luckily, Blue Jays are black-and-blue birds that can be spotted in Homewood, providing a perfect match. The school s most prominent sports team is its men s lacrosse team, which has won 44 national titles - nine NCAA Division I (2007, 2005, 1987, 1985, Johns Hopkins Blue Jays 1984, 1980, 1979, 1978, 1974), 29 United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association (USILA), and six Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association (ILA) titles. Past Johns Hopkins lacrosse teams have represented the United States in international competition.
Hopkins also has a century-old rivalry with McDaniel College (formerly Western Maryland College), playing the Green Johns Hopkins Blue Jays Terrors 83 times in football since the first game in 1894. Johns Hopkins latest team to encounter postseason success is the school s baseball team. The Swimming team also has ranked in the top two of Division III for the last 10 years.
The team is currently on Johns Hopkins Blue Jays a streak of 16 winning seasons and has had over 20 All-American selections. Hopkins also has an acclaimed fencing team, which has ranked in the top three of Division III teams in the past few years and in 2007 defeated University of North Carolina, a Division I team, for the first time. At the 1932 Summer Olympics lacrosse demonstration event Hopkins played for the US.
The Blue Jays finished runner-up to Trinity College, losing a heart-breaker in the championship game. . The team has reached the NCAA tournament 12 times in the program s history.
The team colors are Columbia blue (PMS 285) and black, and the Blue Jay is their mascot. The rivalry with Maryland is the most prominent in college lacrosse and the two teams have met 105 times. The Blue Jays Men s Soccer team has won eight Centennial Conference Regular Season titles along with another four ECAC titles previously to joining the Centennial Conference in 1993.
Homewood Field is the home stadium. Hopkins celebrates Homecoming in the spring to coincide with the height of the lacrosse season. They are primarily members of the Centennial Conference.
Although Blue Jays baseball regularly wins the Centennial Conference regular season and tournament titles, 2008 was the first time since 1989 that the Blue Jays made it to the College World Series for Division III baseball, hosted in Appleton, Wisconsin. The Johns Hopkins University s intercollegiate sports teams are called the Blue Jays (after the bird Blue Jay), and they compete in the NCAA s Division III, except for the lacrosse teams that compete in Division I.
The Black and Blue came from the athletic colors and the Jay most likely stood for first initial in Johns Hopkins.
