School sports centres help shape our understanding of belonging and identity. Does it matter who they are named after?

Sport plays a significant role in the conception of Australian national identity. With the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games currently underway and Queensland preparing to host the 2032 Games, international success in the green and gold continues to be a focus of the Australian media.

But beyond international performances, banal experiences in everyday settings also contribute to perceptions of national identity. Experiences in local and school sport – beyond the bright lights of sporting mega-events – are crucial to understanding how and why sport is so deeply connected to Australian identity.

What do you remember about your own school sports days? Many people still remember the name and colour of their assigned school sports house – even decades after their childhood.

In our new research, we looked at the historical and contemporary naming of school sports halls in Queensland to understand how our broader societal ideas about role models and other positively valued places, animals and things have changed over time.

Sports halls are typically named after people or things that school leaders and the community believe have admirable qualities that they hope to encourage in students. As Australian society evolves and opinions change, so should the names that are considered appropriate for school sports halls.

Making school houses

Initially, it was restricted to private schools in Britain from the 1850s onwards. In the 1900s, the practice spread to Australian private schools, and in the first half of the 20th century it spread to British and Australian public schools.

Linked to the origins of physical education and the ambition that all male children should be fit to defend the realm and nation, sports houses are still seen as a way to encourage a sense of team loyalty and promote healthy competition. The names, mascots, colours and ‘war cries’ of these sports houses play an important role in promoting a sense of belonging.

Although many private secondary schools opened in Queensland in the first half of the 20th century, it was not until after the war that many public secondary schools were established. The first wave ended in 1969.

In our research, we compared the names of houses for both public and private schools in Queensland in 1969 and 2023 to gain insight into how the culture of school sporting houses has changed since then.

In 1969, at least 66% of Queensland secondary schools had a sports centre. By 2023, this had risen to 95%.

Who may become a namesake?

Sports centres are often named after people, places or things that schools believe children should respect or emulate.

In 1969, private secondary schools in Queensland named sports houses mainly after people from the education and religious fields. Some houses were named after important leaders of the school community.

By 2023, little had changed in the naming practices of private high schools. Religion was still the most common name for sports schools.

Queensland’s public secondary schools initially focused on colonial namesakes, such as Cook House (after Captain James Cook), Kennedy House (after colonial explorer Edmund Kennedy) and Leichhardt House (after colonial explorer and naturalist Ludwig Leichhardt).

Like private schools, public schools have retained the names of their gyms over time, with one notable exception: Some public high schools have renamed their gyms to non-colonial names in recent decades, sometimes using terms or places in the language of local First Nations.

Despite this, 40 Queensland public high schools had colonial-named gyms by 2023.

The Rise of the Female Athlete

The most striking change revealed in the data is that houses named after athletes have skyrocketed in popularity, from 10 houses in 1969 to 115 in 2023. They are all located in public schools.

The diversity of athletes represented has also increased. Bradman House (for Sir Donald Bradman) remains the most popular in this category, but he is now followed by Fraser House (for Dawn Fraser) and Freeman House (for Cathy Freeman).

The increase in female athletes as house namesakes in the 2023 data points to a desire to provide schoolchildren with a greater diversity of role models. In 1969, 11% of all high school sports houses with namesakes were named after women, and by 2023 this had increased to 22.6%.

But there are dramatic differences when you look at the types of schools. In 2023, 16.3% of houses in public co-educational schools named after people were female. In private girls’ high schools, that figure jumps to 67.3%.

By comparison, at private boys’ high schools in Queensland, over 90% of house names were named after males.

Colors and mascots

While the “best” house color is a topic for another day, we can confirm that the four most popular house colors in 2023 were blue (20.97%), red (20.81%), green (19.81%) and yellow/gold (18.54%).

We expected maroon to be more popular as it represents Queensland in the state of origin. However, in 2023, only 27 sporting homes had this colour.

Animal mascots were also interesting, with the most popular in 2023 being aggressive predators such as eagles, sharks, lions and crocodiles. Cuddlier Australian natives such as koalas, possums and wombats were rare additions, although the “fighting kangaroo” was the eighth most common animal mascot.

As well as being a shared experience growing up in Australia, school sports are also a powerful example of banal nationalism, with elements of Australian character reinforced through the tradition of school athletics and swimming carnivals.

Sports centres not only provide organisation and a sense of community within a school environment, they also act as a catalyst for local, regional and national identity.

The choices school boards make about house names, colors, and mascots relate not only to a school’s history and traditions, but also to the social environment in which such decisions are made and revised.