In the late 1960s, a researcher named Alexander Schauss became convinced that a specific shade of pink had an unusual effect on the human body — that simply looking at it could slow your heart rate, reduce your strength, and drain your capacity for aggression. Most people thought he was out of his mind. Then he got the U.S. Navy to test it in a prison.
In 1979, Schauss persuaded the directors of the Naval Correctional Institute in Seattle — two men named Baker and Miller — to paint their intake holding cells a precise bubblegum pink he'd been developing for years. The color was mixed to an exact formula: white indoor latex paint combined with red semi-gloss outdoor paint in a specific ratio. They then monitored what happened to the inmates placed inside.
The Navy's own report was unambiguous: "Since the initiation of this procedure on 1 March 1979, there have been no incidents of erratic or hostile behavior during the initial phase of confinement." Fifteen minutes of exposure was enough to suppress aggressive behavior. Officers who had previously struggled to process inmates without incident found the job suddenly, inexplicably easier. The color was named Baker-Miller Pink in honor of the two directors who'd agreed to try it.
Word spread fast. Prisons and psychiatric facilities across the United States began painting their holding cells and intake rooms the same shade. A juvenile detention center in San Bernardino, California reported that aggressive detainees placed in the pink room would "relax, stop yelling and banging, and often fall asleep within 10 minutes." The nickname "Drunk Tank Pink" emerged as county jails began using it for disorderly intake cells. By some estimates, 20% of prisons and police stations in Switzerland still have at least one pink cell today.
Then football coaches got involved. In 1979, University of Iowa head coach Hayden Fry — who had read about the Navy experiment — had the visiting team's locker room at Kinnick Stadium painted floor-to-ceiling in Baker-Miller Pink. His logic was straightforward: if the color made aggressive men passive, putting the opposing team in a pink room before a game was a meaningful competitive advantage. The locker room has stayed pink ever since, and it remains one of college football's most famous psychological gambits.
Colorado State went further. Their football program painted the visiting locker room pink and the impact was considered so unfair that the Western Athletic Conference was eventually forced to introduce a rule requiring both teams' locker rooms to be painted the same color. A paint color had gotten itself banned from competitive sports.
The science, it should be said, is genuinely contested. Later studies have produced conflicting results, and some researchers argue the calming effect only lasts 15 to 30 minutes before the body adjusts. A 2014 Swiss study found no significant difference in aggression between inmates in pink cells versus standard ones. Whether Baker-Miller Pink actually works — or whether the original Navy experiment was simply the result of everyone behaving better because they knew they were being watched — remains an open question.
What isn't contested is that the idea spread far enough, fast enough, that a sports conference had to write rules about it. The color is still in Kinnick Stadium's visiting locker room right now, waiting for the next away team to walk in. Whether or not the science holds up, somebody clearly thought it was worth keeping.
