Did Tim Cook choose the colors for the iPhone 17 Pro?

Being a Charlottesville, Virginia resident, I couldn’t help but think to myself, “Damn these iPhones sure look like UVA’s colors.” You can clearly see the resemblance from their branding page.

Tim Cook didn’t go to UVA, but he did go to Auburn. It’s the second thing he writes after “Apple CEO” on his X profile. What are Auburn’s colors, you ask? Also the same colors as the iPhone 17 Pro - Deep Blue and Cosmic Orange.

Surely this can’t just be some coincidence where to the naked eye, both these schools have almost the same orange and blue color. Turns out, there is a relationship between them:

UVA Magazine:

The article “Did You Know? A Collection of University Esoterica” [Winter 2009] reminded me of a question I’ve had in my mind for a long time. I’ve heard it said that Auburn University and the University of Virginia have the same school colors because Virginia helped Auburn establish its football team—and Auburn wanted to show appreciation. Is there any truth to this story?

James B. Davis (Grad ’70)
Lexington, Va.

An 1887 University of Virginia graduate, George Petrie, was the organizer and coach of Auburn’s first football team in 1892. In honor of UVA, Petrie chose orange and blue as Auburn’s official colors. His contributions to Auburn didn’t end there; Petrie was the founder of the school’s history department, graduate school and athletics department, as well as the author of the Auburn Creed.—Ed.

The story doesn’t end there, and only gets more intriguing with a story that goes across the pond. The Wall Street Journal had the full scoop back in 2019 when both UVA and Auburn met at the Final Four of the NCAA tournament (News+ link):

It begins with a University of Virginia student named Allen Potts. He was the Zion Williamson of the 19th century. The best athlete on campus, he won the school’s 100-yard dash, the 3-mile run and the broad jump. He was the second baseman for the baseball team. He was the running back for the football team. And he was the unwitting inspiration for today’s basketball team because of one sport he didn’t play.

Mr. Potts was at Oxford University in the summer of 1888 when he began dabbling in crew and became familiar with the English rowing tradition of trading scarfs after regattas. Historians believe that is how he came to own a scarf from the Grosvenor Rowing Club. It was blue and orange.

Virginia’s colors at the time were silver grey and cardinal red. But this was becoming a problem for the school’s football team. Football was played in mud. The mud had to be washed off. The wash turned the red into a faint shade of pink.

What to do with the pink uniforms became such a hot topic of conversation in the fall of 1888 that school leaders called a meeting to pick new colors. When one of the most popular kids on campus arrived, he happened to be wearing the natty attire of the Grosvenor Rowing Club.

Mr. Potts’s scarf was ripped off his neck as someone pointed to the blue and orange stripes, according to a 1904 account in the school newspaper.

“How will these colors do?”

They would do well enough that Virginia’s colors would soon be orange and blue. As it turned out, so would Auburn’s.

George Petrie was responsible for that larceny. He graduated from Virginia in 1887 and taught at Auburn for one year before leaving to pursue a doctorate at Johns Hopkins University, where he studied under a professor who happened to be obsessed with football. His name was Woodrow Wilson.

After his time learning about the game from the future president of the U.S., Mr. Petrie returned to Auburn and started a football team there. Yet in 1892, as his team was getting ready to play the Georgia Goats, Auburn didn’t even have colors.

Mr. Petrie was busy trying to solve that problem. He knew where to find the solution: his own alma mater.

Virginia had recently adopted the blue and orange of the Grosvenor Rowing Club and Mr. Petrie decided to swipe the colors for Auburn.

There is some dispute about this piece of folklore from the late 1800s. According to another school legend, from school records and historians, the person responsible for Auburn’s colors was a woman known as “Miss Allie,” who made Mr. Petrie a sweater in Virginia’s colors.

But whether the mastermind was Mr. Petrie or Miss Allie, the plan worked. The heist went off without a hitch.

Auburn had stolen Virginia’s stolen colors.

The craziest part of this story? If you look at Grosvenor Rowing Club’s official colors, they are blue and gold, not blue and orange. They used orange paint instead of gold because gold was too expensive.

The Grosvenor Rowing Club had a secret of its own. The colors on the Grosvenor family coat of arms aren’t blue and orange. They’re blue and gold.

“Gold paint was expensive to put on rowing blades,” said Brian Chapman of the Grosvenor Rowing Club. “Orange was as close as they could get.”

Looks like Tim Cook got a head start giving advice to the Design Team now that Jeff Williams is stepping down. Maybe we’ll see Duke Blue next year?