Until 1927 Wheaton College sports teams did not have an official name. It was this way until a sports editor for the Record referred to the football team as the “Crusaders” in February of 1927. The very next week the football team was again called the Crusaders and the name stuck. It seems that there is no official naming of the sports teams the Crusaders, only that the name caught on quickly, and that by 1931 the Tower was calling the sports teams the Crusaders. The name and mascot were used for 73 years until 2000 when it was announced that Wheaton would no longer use them out of a desire to avoided symbols that did not reflect the College’s Christian values and goals.