"Bow Down to Washington" is the official

fight song A fight song is a rousing short song associated with a sports team. The term is most common in the United States and Canada. In Australia, Mexico, and New Zealand these songs are called the team anthem, team song, or games song. First associated ...

of the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...

. It was written by Lester J. Wilson in 1915 while partaking in a competition requesting a new song for the university. The competition was sponsored by the campus newspaper, The Daily, and had a grand prize of

US$ The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...

25 (the equivalent of $655 in 2021). "Bow Down to Washington" was first used as a fight song at the

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered on ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

football game on November 6, 1915, in a 72–0 away victory. The lyrics were first published one week later in the home program for the November 13, 1915 contest, again versus California. The song is typically played and sung at all University of Washington sporting events at which the

University of Washington Husky Marching Band The University of Washington Husky Marching Band (Husky Band, or HMB) is the marching band of the University of Washington. A 240-member ensemble, HMB is one of the few bands outside the Big Ten Conference The Big Ten Conference (stylized ...

is present, including all

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

, and

volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summ ...

games.

References

Pac-12 Conference fight songs American college songs University of Washington 1915 songs {{1910s-song-stub