Summit League Logo Battle: Centenary College

When it comes to The Summit League, we have some of the best nicknames in all of college sports. And what better way to embrace our team monikers than to take a look at their visual equivalences: the team logo. For all of our analyses, we used the primary logos for each team listed on the venerable website SportsLogos.net. (Please note that any digs thrown at the schools are just for fun and do not necessarily represent our true feelings about them!)

Program: Centenary College

Nickname: Gentlemen or Gents

Origin of Nickname: Football players at Centenary were in a fight during a 1921 game. President of the college sat team down, telling them to act more like gentlemen. Name stuck. (h/t: The Summit League)

Philosophical Take: The giant "C" in the middle of the logo is representative of the college's little man complex. As the smallest school in Division I (soon to be transitioning to Division III), Centenary has to overcompensate with its massive logo. The red is a two-pronged symbol: 1. It represents how far in the red the school would have been had they stayed in Division I in this struggling economy, 2. It is indicative of the years of bleeding the program has suffered (no NCAA Tournament appearances in 50 years of D-I basketball and a .249 conference win percentage over 7 years). The bland look of the Centenary trademark paints a picture of a department that is either efficient with its resources or has lost all regard for what people think of them after all those years of losing.

Final Judgment: This logo lacks the visual appeal of others in the conference, and generally gives off a very archaic vibe which likely satiates the old-timers who would do anything to conjure up the image of Robert Parish in his Centenary uniform.

How We'd Fix It: We'd nix the C and much of the red, for starters. In an attempt to reinvent the program for its new level of play, we'd also ditch the Gents nickname. While fans would likely toss around a lot of new ideas, we'd suggest, quite simply, the Parishes. It serves a triple-purpose. First, as a private United Methodist college, the parish nickname could pay homage to local parishioners. Second, counties in Louisiana are known as parishes. Finally, since the team would likely avoid the nickname "Chiefs" after their most famous basketball alum's own nickname, why not simply honor the man by calling the team by his true name, Parish. Three birds with one stone.

Artist's Rendering: