Why are there “Varsity” teams in high school athletics, when “varsity” originally meant “University”?
I have two theories:
It was originally thought of as the team composed of those most likely to go on to participate in university athletics.
Some high school teams, when high school teams were just getting started, were concieved of as some kind of “extension” of particular local university clubs.
Is either of these close?
-FrL-
How about 3. High schools simply adopted a convention found at colleges?
I’d go with that one in a heartbeat…
What’s the convention you’re referring to?
-FrL-
I think he means that at universities, the “main” team was the varsity team (attested from about 1891), while the scrubs or freshmen were the “junior varsity.” High schools just carried that usage over.
I agree that simple emulation is far more likely than either your 1 or 2, which I have never seen reference to.
That makes sense. I just didn’t know college teams are called “Varsity” as well.
-FrL-
The word varsity actually comes from the word university (university to versity to varsity), according to Wikipedia and an online etymology site.
They aren’t very often, these days, because most universities field just one team per sport (counting men and women separately, of course). Before freshman eligibility was made universal in 1972, however, many schools chose to field freshman teams so that freshmen didn’t have to sit idle for a year. The main team was called the varsity when it needed to be distinguished from the freshmen.
Nowadays, the only time you hear this usage is to distinguish “varsity sports”, in which schools compete within the NCAA, from “club sports” organized on a more ad hoc basis. This article gives a good example of this usage.