Through various college names, Wayne State University has had an athletics program for a hundred years.
To celebrate that, and to give light to the Medal of Honor, the highest award for valor in action against an enemy, force, The Wayne State University Department of Athletics unveiled a new football uniform today.
This new uniform will be worn for the first time at this Saturday’s 6 p.m. game against Saginaw Valley State.
Only 3,499 recipients in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and Coast Guard have been awarded the Medal of Honor.
“Any time you celebrate a milestone like 100 years, you have a lot of proud moments and accomplishments to reflect upon,” said WSU Director of Athletics Rob Fournier in a statement. “However, the more I thought about a century of athletics at WSU, I couldn’t help but think of those who have sacrificed so much so that we could have those 100 years. And I kept coming back to the military.”
There are currently 72 living recipients of the Medal of Honor.
Through the year, each of the 18 athletic teams at the university will have an apparel item with patches representing both the WSU 100th anniversary logo as well as the Medal of Honor logo, in addition to the name of a Medal of Honor recipient.
More than 400 Medal of Honor recipient names were selected to represent each branch of the military, including the only female recipient (Mary Walker of the U.S. Army).