This was Monday night on the concourse of Mohegan Sun Arena, an impromptu confab with the great Tommie Major.

“Hey! New York Times!” Major said, which is what he always says when he sees me. “I got a question.”

“What’s up Maj?” I replied.

Major said, “When did black become one of our school colors?”

Major, among the all-timers in New London High’s lore and legend, alluded to the black uniforms the boys’ basketball team wore Monday night during The Day Holiday Classic.

Full disclosure: Major wasn’t the only former Whaler with some distaste. Their messages: New London High’s colors are green and gold. Forever and ever. Amen.

Now I get that we only have so many damns to give over the course of a day and that uniform choices don’t normally amount to the same hill of beans as Bogie once mentioned in Casablanca. I also get that black is a popular uniform choice for high school kids. They think they look cooler and tougher. Even the New London coaches wore all black Monday night.

Sorry. This is different. This is New London. I found it ironic that the warm-up shirts the Whalers wore before the game against Windsor trumpeted the word “tradition,” yet their uniform color betrayed New London High’s tradition. New London is green and gold. Green and gold is New London. It’s why former mayor Finizio painted all the fire hydrants in town green and gold once. It’s why the trash receptacles in the city are green and gold. It’s why the floor at Conway Gym is green and gold.

Not black.

We need to explain tradition to the kids and why it’s important, even more so in New London, where tradition is deeper and prouder than any other school in this corner of the world. We need to explain and educate that while the tug of black uniforms is understandable, no other color scheme runs more sacrosanct to its people than the green and gold does in New London. It’s more than just a hue to all the old Whalers. And this is a chance to explain to the Whalers of 2023 the importance of who came before them.

That’s still a thing, you know. Kids need to understand that tradition begets lineage and lineage begets tradition. You play for who came before you. You adhere to the same principles. And you eventually leave the program imparting that same wisdom to your younger teammates. It’s far more important that the fleeting whim of looking cool one night in the big arena.

I’ve been doing this long enough to understand that something with such surface insignificance becomes a punching bag for the dreaded hot take: slow news day, Mikey? Nothing more important to whine about? I’d ask anybody who views this as much ado about nothing to ponder the following:

The Yankees don’t wear black. Neither do the Green Bay Packers. Or Montreal Canadiens. Or Notre Dame. See, New London is viewed as the Yankees, except on a smaller scale around here: Love ’em, hate ’em, but you always have an opinion about them. You are always watching. They are the standard. The yardstick.

In fairness, so are the Celtics, who detestably wear black on occasion. It is a disgrace. And so was defacing the traditional parquet floor at the TD Garden (and by extension the hallowed Boston Garden) with that defamatory, NBA-issued special floor during that recently contrived in-season tournament, a floor that had more colors than a box of Tide.

But I digress. The point is that the whims of anybody who thinks black looks cooler and tougher on the Whalers ought to be considered. And then dismissed. Green and gold means too much. And if you don’t understand it’s more than just two colors, if you don’t understand their almost mythical significance, then perhaps you, too, need to hear from Tommie Major and many others who felt a bit vexed Monday night.

This has a chance to be a very special basketball season for both the Whaler boys and girls. They’re both very good — and with a number of kids with magnetic personalities. I’d be happier if they made history the way all the others did before them at New London High: in green and gold.

This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro