Providence Friars The Providence Friars is the name of the athletic teams of Providence College . They compete in the Big East Conference ( NCAA Division I ) for every sport except for ice hockey , where they compete in Hockey East . The Big East Conference was founded in 1979 by former athletic director and men ' s basketball coach Dave Gavitt . On December 15 , 2012 , Providence and the other seven Catholic , non - FBS schools announced that they were departing the Big East for a new conference ; on March 7 , 2013 , it was officially confirmed that Providence ' s new conference would operate under the Big East name . The women ' s volleyball team , which had been an associate member of the America East Conference before the Big East split , remained in that conference for one more season before joining the Big East for the 2014 season . The school ' s men ' s and women ' s sports teams are called the " Friar s " , after the Dominican Order that runs the school . They are the only collegiate team to use the name . Overall , the program consists of 19 varsity sports , seven for men and ten for women : men ' s and women ' s basketball , men ' s and women ' s cross country , field hockey , men ' s and women ' s ice hockey , men ' s lacrosse , men ' s and women ' s soccer , softball , men ' s and women ' s swimming and diving , women ' s tennis , men ' s and women ' s track and field , and women ' s volleyball . The lacrosse team competed in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference through the 2009 season before joining the newly created Big East lacrosse league for 2010 . Former sports include football , which was offered from 1921 until World War II in 1941 , and baseball , which was dropped due to Title IX in 1999 . Other dropped sports include men ' s tennis and men ' s golf . The school ' s biggest rivalries are Boston University and Boston College in hockey and UConn and URI in the school ' s other sports , especially in soccer , swimming and diving , and basketball . Colors , mascot and fight songs . The Dominicans ' use of black and white as the colors of their habits were passed on from the earliest days at Providence College as the school colors . Through the years , various highlight colors have come and gone , including yellow , red and gold ; the current highlight color of silver dates to the introduction of the current logo in 2002 . The current logo shows a cowled Friar in profile . It is used by all teams except the hockey teams , who have used the " Skating Friar " logo since 1973 . The nickname " Friars " dates back to 1929 , when a Providence Journal article used the nickname in reference to the baseball team . Previously , the teams were variously known as " The Black and White " or " Dominicans . " The Friars nickname comes from the short - form nickname of the Dominican Order , the " Blackfriars . " The original Friars fight song was " Friar Away . " However , in the 1950s , WPRO , the radio station that still carries Friar basketball games to this day , began using " When The Saints Go Marching In " as the theme music to their coverage of PC basketball games . The fans took to it so well that it has become the fight song of the college , with Friar Away slipping into obscurity , save for a brief revival in the late 1990s , when the sheet music was rediscovered by a student conductor . Little known fact , Mike Keane ( 2013 alum ) was actually the school Mascot .