Director of Athletics Neil Cunningham shared this letter with the community in the November 18, 2022 issue of the Friday News.

Hello Saints, 

Over the past few weeks, you may have noticed some new athletics logos popping up around campus—in the paint on the football field this weekend, for example, or on coaches’ t-shirts and quarter-zips. I am excited to share with you today the sources of these logos: our new St. Andrew’s athletics identity, designed by our very own Associate Director of Communication Amy Kendig. This brand kit represents years of conversations, work, and research on the part of the Communications Office and the Athletics Department, and incorporates both school history and feedback from students, coaches, alumni, and other stakeholders. 

I used the word “new” above, but this term is a bit misleading. The logos in this kit are modernized versions of an athletics identity that has been in use at St. Andrew’s for most of the school’s history. The primary brand mark is an updated version of the “StA” logo that has appeared on Saints baseball hats since at least the 1950s:



The secondary brand mark is a simplified version of the 1929 shield you all know and love—and this white cross on a red background is what has appeared on the school’s crew oars since the 1930s:



In rolling out this new athletics branding kit, our goal is to strengthen and centralize the visual identity of Saints athletics. You know what it means to compete as a Saint. I hear and see student-athletes, their coaches, and their fans expressing the core values of SAS athletics every day. But for many years now, the school has not had one centralized athletics logo that says to all who encounter it, “We are St. Andrew’s.” The school has appended various athletic identities and logos over the decades, including the griffin, the cardinal, and even the formal school crest. But at the heart of this fluctuation, there’s always been one constant: we are the Saints. Since 1929, the school’s athletic teams have referred to themselves as Saints (see page 41 of A History of St. Andrew’s School) and St. Andreans have been singing “When the Saints Go Marching In” for nearly that long, too. You scream “Go Saints!” on the sidelines. You chant “1-2-3 Saints” in your pregame huddles. Even local newspapers refer to us as the Saints. Turns out, we don’t have to decide if we’re griffins or cardinals or anything else because we’ve always been Saints. This athletic branding fully embraces our core identity and puts it front and center on your uniforms, where it always should have been. 

You can explore the full branding kit here. These logos and wordmarks will not immediately appear across all team uniforms—all of which are on three to five-year replacement cycles—or throughout our athletic facilities; this transition will take years of hard work by many people. In the meantime, athletes and families can order warmups and other team gear with our new athletics brand identity here. These fall and winter team stores will close on December 4; spring team stores will be up and running in the new year. If you are interested in ordering custom team gear, please contact me to start that process. Further, I welcome all questions and conversations about this new SAS athletics identity—please reach out to me at any time to discuss. (And, if you are a student, I encourage you to join the Athletics Committee!)

At the end of the day, what makes an athlete, a team, an athletic program strong? It’s not the logo on your shirt or the colors on your sleeve. It’s the person—the heart—inside the gear.

But a great uniform definitely doesn’t hurt. 

Go Saints!
Neil Cunningham (aka Mr. C.)
Director of Athletics 
ncunningham@standrews-de.org