The Devil-Goat rivalry

In 1926, Eileen Kramer Dodd, an education professor, encouraged the junior class she sponsored to come up with a symbol to represent themselves. One morning the juniors showed up to breakfast wearing a felt green goat symbol on their sweatshirts, solidifying themselves as the Green Goats and in response, the senior class thusly established themselves as the Red Devils quickly after. This lighthearted rivalry inspired the other two underclassmen years to adopt the logos aswell corresponding to their year of entrance, goats are even years and devils are odd years. While this event used to consist of a week-long prank rivalry between the Devils and the Goats, it is now a one day event held on the last Thursday of classes in the spring semester where students line-up for free T-shirts, food, and games. Throughout the years the Devils and Goats have been represented very differently by the students, this tradition is ever changing and always evolving. Tracking the iconography of Devil-Goat day shows us an interesting example of the way students kept their campus culture alive in the face of the near centuries worth of changes to the landscape of Mary Washington.