The Hawk

Issue date: 11/10/06 Section: Sports

The Hawk represents fan commitment for half a century.

If you know college basketball, if you know Philadelphia, or if you have ever heard of that small Jesuit school on City Avenue, you know about the Hawk.

Traditions run deep through the streets of Philadelphia. The Hawk is the most recognizable tradition at Saint Joseph's University.

With an undergraduate population of roughly 4,250 students, it is a small school with big school spirit.

The Hawk represents this spirit.

Flapping its wings, never stopping, the school's mantra of "The Hawk Will Never Die" echoes through the field house on game day.

In the fall of 1956, a group of male students living in what was then Jordan Hall, and now no longer stands, pooled their money together. They handed the collected $105 to Jim Brennan, a student cheerleader. Brennan took the money, went into a costume shop in central Philadelphia, and the rest is history.

The Hawk was born.

Just three years earlier a band started at Saint Joseph's University. The school did not have an official band before then, just an ROTC band that supplied students with unusual instruments and played on what is now Finnesey Field while the ROTC marched for their daily duties.

That was until three freshman, one junior, and one senior joined together and created the City-Line Five, a Dixieland band that played at the basketball home games as well as local proms and other community functions.

Ed Metz, one of the three freshman in the City Line Five, explained that there were not many Dixieland songs that could be played at the basketball games. Herein lies the birth of "When the Saints Go Marching In."

Today, Hawks young and old chant this song in our own redition of "When the Hawks Go Flying In," to the tune of the Saint Joseph's Pep Band.

With $105 and a fighting passion for St. Joes basketball, Jim Brennan started what is now a highly recognized tradition in Philadelphia and for sports fans across the country.

What started as a volunteer project by a guy who just thought St. Joes should have a mascot has turned into the symbol for a school, with an application process that mimics most college applications.

"The big misconception is that there is some sort of flap-off," says Jim Miller, a junior at St. Joes, and the Hawk for the 2006-2007 school year.

Continued...

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