On Jan. 31, Creighton University’s pep band performs “The White and the Blue” fight song during the annual men’s basketball Pinkout game against the University of Connecticut, energizing the crowd and showing school spirit in support of breast cancer awareness. The iconic song was written and composed by Class of 2026 alumni Gordon X. Richmond in 1926 on his banjo.

Maybe you’ve heard it only through the loud, brassy sound of Creighton’s pep band right before a game starts, or maybe it’s always just out of reach in your mind, trapped in the faint memory of some student orientation of freshman year. Either way, 2026 marks the 100th year since Creighton’s fight song. “The White and the Blue” was written by Class of 1926 alumni Gordon X. Richmond, changing the sound of Creighton’s school spirit ever since.  

Trevor Snetsinger, a junior who plays trumpet for the pep band, knows the fight song a little bit more than most students at Creighton. During an interview, he talked about how he plays it before and after every game, and that every year he’s part of the group that teaches it to incoming students.  

And yet, even though he knows the song so well through his trumpet-playing, even he doesn’t fully know the lyrics. He imagined he wasn’t alone in that predicament.  

“I think that not a lot of people know about it … because you’re taught the words freshman year, but no one really remembers it,” Snetsinger said. 

But even though the fight song is most well-known through the sounds of the triumphant, proud band, the original song was performed on a banjo, according to Richmond’s own account when he talked to the Omaha World-Herald.  

It may have gone through some instrumental changes, but the Creighton fight song’s core has remained the same.  

“I think that it’s crazy that we’ve had it for that long and it hasn’t been changed at all. Creighton has a long history, and ‘The White and the Blue’ song is part of that,” Snetsinger remarked.  

And just as “The White and the Blue” has remained the same for 100 years, its impact on school spirit has remained similarly undiminished. In 2011, Creighton celebrated the 107th birthday for alumni Will Clark, in a video published on YouTube by Creighton. He sang the song that had burned in him since he graduated in 1929.  

100 years have passed, but Creighton’s fight song continues to color the school spirit.  As Snetsinger put it, “It gets people together and reminds them that we are Creighton.”