U.S. Historical Figures on Sports Logos

The Frisco RoughRiders are expected to unveil a logo and uniform set later today which will be heavily influenced by the image of former US President Teddy Roosevelt. Roosevelt led a division of the army known as the “Rough Riders” prior to assuming the presidency following the assassination of William McKinley in September 1901.

Here’s what Frisco has teased us with so far compared to a photo of President Roosevelt during his Rough Rider days:

Yeah, this has the potential to be quite a fun re-brand. Full unveil is expected to take place at 1pm ET, naturally we’ll be posting the graphics when that happens.

Evoking the image of a U.S. historical figure isn’t new, it’s been done before. We’re going to take a look at some of the famous historical Americans, both fictional and real, to appear in sports logo form.

Benjamin Franklin

The Philadelphia 76ers are obviously dripped in the history of the United States with their branding, their name is a reference to 1776 – the year in which the Declaration of Independence was signed, which just happened to take place in their home town.

While the team has (almost) always used a red-white-and-blue stars-heavy design throughout their half-century history, it wasn’t until 2014 that they actually made a logo depicting any of those famous signers of the declaration. Ben Franklin, never a president but a very important figure in the history of the United States has also long been the unofficial mascot of the city as well as being buried there. In this logo he is shown dribbling a basketball while wearing an old-school (very old school) 76ers branded coat.

A very close version of this logo originally appeared as an alternate logo for the cancelled 1999 NBA All-Star Game, scheduled to be held in Philadelphia. It was brought back when Philly got the game again in 2002.

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George Washington

It seems quite appropriate that George Washington University would have a logo featuring George Washington, the namesake of the school and the first president of the country.

Here, President Washington is apparently approximately 600 feet tall and wielding his own memorial monument as a flag pole for a banner bearing his initials. The logo seen above is no longer used, sadly, however there is a new logo the school is using showing Washington which you can see here.

After his term as president ended Washington didn’t quit, he was Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army until his death just two weeks before the dawn of the 1800s.

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Teddy Roosevelt

In addition to Frisco not being the first team to use a historical figure as a logo, they’re not even the first one to use Teddy Roosevelt… nor are they the first team named “RoughRiders” to do so. Introducing the alternate logo of the United States Hockey League’s Cedar Rapids RoughRiders.

President Roosevelt is shown here wearing his pinned-up cowboy-style hat with the crossed sabres replaced with hockey sticks (clever), Teddy also has on his pince-nez. We’re assuming this version of Teddy was during some sort of charity St. Patrick’s Day event he was taking part in, not sure why else he would have his hair and moustache dyed green.

Teddy Roosevelt had a guinea pig he named “Fighting Bob Evans”. The name is better out of context.

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Robert E. Lee

“Virgil quick come see, there goes Robert E. Lee”

Robert E. Lee was the commander of the Confederate Army during the United States Civil War. He had a horse named “Traveler”. There the two of them are wielding a bat and chomping down on a baseball while leaping through a letter “A”. The Arkansas Travelers (get it? now you know why they have that name) wore this logo on one of their caps for several years in the early 2000s.

Traveler the horse, still remains as part of their logo set, now featured prominently as their primary mark.

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Uncle Sam

We said both real and fictional figures would be featured. Here’s “Uncle Sam”, a character commonly used to depict the United States as far back as during the War of 1812. His most famous depiction appears on the “I WANT YOU! To Join the U.S. Army” posters during the First World War in the 1910s.

The Double-A Minor League Baseball New Hampshire Fisher Cats had originally intended on being named the New Hampshire Primaries when they got their new ballclub about 10 years ago. The name in reference to New Hampshire being the first state to hold primaries during a presidential election year. The team unveiled a whole set of logos to go with the name, the primary featured an elephant and a donkey side-by-side. Uncle Sam was to be an alternate and a cap logo. When the name died, so too did this logo.

That is until 2011 when the Fisher Cats brought their Uncle Sam cap logo back from the “unused logo” bin, now we get to see Sam calling his shot (“I want you! To go over that fence, baseball”) in his famous stars-and-stripes cap every Sunday home game.

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