WKU Libraries blog

Oldham's Red Towel Sketch

The red towel tradition began in the 1940’s.  According to Chip Royal, an AP feature writer “A towel came flying down out of the air at Madison Square Garden and landed on a spectator’s head  — and another basketball fan met Ed Diddle, the colorful Western Kentucky State coach.”  Royal’s article was printed in the Daily News on February 14, 1943.  The towels continued to appear and disappear as the athletics and physical education departments swiped towels back and forth.  Diddle decided to dye the athletic department towels red to differentiate from the physical education supply. 

Crume's Red Towel

Through the years the towel tradition has grown.  Now few fans appear at a game without a red  towel.  In 1970, athletics director John Oldham drew a sketch of an arm waving a towel on the back of an envelope which he gave to Dr. Chuck Crume to develop into a logo.  These original drawings are now housed in the University Archives along with personal papers of Ed Diddle, John Oldham, Chuck Crume and others involved with the athletic program.

Check out Hilltopper Heritage and KenCat for additional information on these and other University Archives collections.

Varsity Lettermen 1959

WKU athletic records and photographs are a hot item in University Archives.  We answer many questions related to coaching staff, student athletes and teams throughout the year.  In order to facilitate research several series of records have been processed and detailed finding aids made available online.  These include two sets of photographs: 

• Athletic Media Relations Photograph Collection (http://digitalcommons.wku.edu/dlsc_ua_fin_aid/75/)
• Athletics section of the WKU Archives Photograph Collection (http://digitalcommons.wku.edu/dlsc_ua_fin_aid/29/ ). 

Digitized images are available through KenCat (http://wku.pastperfect-online.com/35749cgi/mweb.exe?request=ks). 

Several athletic department office records have been processed. 

• Athletic Director’s Records (http://digitalcommons.wku.edu/dlsc_ua_fin_aid/78)
• Baseball Office 1947-1959 (http://digitalcommons.wku.edu/dlsc_ua_fin_aid/66/)
• Athletic Media Relations

These last records are especially useful to anyone interested in the Hilltoppers as they consist of Media Guides for every major sport(http://digitalcommons.wku.edu/dlsc_ua_fin_aid/55/), Student Biographical File 1979-2004 (http://digitalcommons.wku.edu/dlsc_ua_fin_aid/54/) and Clipping File 1962-present (http://digitalcommons.wku.edu/dlsc_ua_fin_aid/53/).

We are currently processing the Basketball Office records which consist of correspondence regarding schedules, tournaments and athletes and hope to have a finding aid posted in the near future. 

The University Archives also houses an extensive film, video and audio collection, the bulk of which is made up of athletic film.  The master list is available online at: http://www.wku.edu/Library/dlsc/ua/film.htm 

If you have Hilltopper documents, photographs or memorabilia that don’t appear in the finding aids, please contact the University Archives at 270-745-4793 or via email at archives@wku.edu. 

Check out KenCat to get information on other University Archives collections:  http://wku.pastperfect-online.com/35749cgi/mweb.exe?request=ks