Celebrities Celebrate College Football with Color Day

There is no shortage of celebrity sports fans nowadays, especially at the collegiate level, where alums and superfans regularly show their support for one team or another by donning that school's colors.

This trend reached a fevered pitched on Sept. 4, when "College Colors Day" turned Twitter and other social media platforms into a giant pep rally in anticipation of the start of the 2015 college football season.

Here's a look back at some of the more notable celebrities and star athletes who opted for scholarly apparel over runway couture:

Bear Out of Water

Missy Franklin, an Olympic swimmer who won five medals (including four golds) at the 2012 London Olympic Games, showed off her allegiance to California—where she swam from 2013-15.

Rooting For the Home Team

Actor Joel McHale has starred on Community, a TV show about a community college, for the past six years. The Greendale Human Beings didn't have a football team, though, so Seattle native McHale opted to rep Washington, where he graduated from in 1995 with a history degree.

He Was. Penn State

Former Penn State and NFL defensive tackle Anthony Adams hasn't wavered in his allegiance to the Nittany Lions, where he played from 1999-2002. He then spent four seasons with the San Francisco 49ers and another five with the Chicago Bears, retiring after the 2011 season.

A Hokie at Heart

Though he's about to embark on his 23rd year coaching in the NFL and third season in charge of the Arizona Cardinals, Bruce Arians is still a college fan at heart. He's a Virginia Tech graduate, a former quarterback who ran the wishbone offense in Blacksburg before starting his coaching career there as a graduate assistant.

Doubling Up on the Fandom

Before becoming one of the most famous talk show hosts in the world, Jerry Springer was a lawyer and a politician. He got his political science degree from Tulane and a law degree from Northwestern. 

Always a Hog

Country signer Justin Moore grew up in Arkansas and remains a diehard Razorbacks fan. The 2014 Academy of Country Music Awards winner for New Artist of the Year even rocks the school colors at his concerts.

Proud to Be a Nerd

Michelle Wie has been a professional golfer since 2005, when she was 15 years old, and last year won the U.S. Women's Open. Though she wasn't able to play for Stanford's women's golf team while attending the school from 2007-12, she remains an avid Cardinal supporter.

Clean and Green

Steve Garvey had more than 2,500 hits in 19 seasons in Major League Baseball, splitting his time between the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres. But the man known as "Mr. Clean" was a two-sport star all the way through college, earning a varsity letter for playing defensive back for the Michigan State Spartans in 1967.

Follow Brian J. Pedersen on Twitter at @realBJP.