Origins of Blue Devil Nickname
Traced to 1941
It perplexed the founding curator of the Huntington School Heritage Museum for many years. Jack Abrams always wondered about the origin of the nickname “Blue Devils” and how it came to be associated with Huntington High School’s athletic program.
“We carefully went through each of our annual yearbooks, looking for the first printed reference to Huntington High School ‘Blue Devils,’” said Mr. Abrams nearly a decade ago.
The nickname “Blue and Whites” was mentioned in the high school’s very first yearbook in 1930. In the years that followed other terms were used including “The Blue and White Machine” and “The Blues.” At one point the football team was called “The Pigskin Pushers.” Later sports teams were simply referred to as “The Huntington Team.”
In 1941 the nickname “Blue Devils” appears in the yearbook for the first time, beginning with the football team and later spreading to other sports. “In a catalog from Duke University, we found that they use a blue and white devil as their official logo,” Mr. Abrams explained. “We believe that Mr. Bill Class, longtime and popular physical education teacher, coach and director of sports, introduced the very same symbols to Huntington High School, with a front facing devil rather than one in profile.”
The nickname caught on and has been in continuous use for the past 74 years.