The Pitt Beagle

Ok, the Dawg just had to chime in on the recently renovated Pitt Panther secondary logo introduced on www.pittsburghpanthers.com today. Of course this really is just a simplifying of the logo appeared on the football team's helmets from 1997-2004 and was relegated to a secondary emblem when Pitt became Pitt again in 2005. And although the logo is of course supposed to be a Panther, it's quite obvious that it looks something else. I think to most fans it's quite obvious this new version of the Pitt Panther looks more similar to a rabid dog than the large sized cat its supposed to be .

But I guess no Pitt fan should be surprised. We've already been down this road many times before. From ROC, the cartoonish squirrel in the 1990s to the Dino Cat logo on the helmet that many swear Steve Pederson lifted straight from the Jurassic Park movies, it's clear that Pitt hasn't been comfortable with it's branding, logos and even its mascot for quite some time now.

And for, it just seems so ridiculous that the athletic department spends so much time on this issue anyway. As a self professed admirer of the classic script look from the 70-80-90s, I personally continue to be stupefied at the athletic department's insistence on constantly changing the program branding without simply embracing the most recognized icon the university ever had. Everyone knows those simple four letters in its signature script styles. It's synonymous with the football program and has been for some time.

And I hear that arguments against bringing back the script on the message boards. We all know Mike Ditka, Joe Schmidt, Jock Sutherland and Marshall Goldberg didn't wear the script. But they played before college football was regularly on television. It's during this era that Pitt rose again and did it wearing the script Pitt on their helmets. It's why its so iconic despite debuting only 35+ years ago. It's what the country identifies immediately to when memories of those great Pitt teams are invoked.

As for the supposedly lack of sales of the jersey's at the auction after the Youngstown State game, that's a relatively weak argument since the jersey's of the most popular players did sell and who in their right mind would spend over $200 on a lesser known player's jersey anyway? Especially when many felt that those supposed throwback jerseys didn't even accurately reflect any of the true past incarnations anyway. Just judging but what one sees at games and around town, it appears to me that the script sells quite well, especially when considering its not even the current branding nor is it as easily and widely available as the current Pitt merchandise.

Maybe its me, but anyone who saw HB Blades and Tyler Palko wearing the script logo on their helmets at the Senior Bowl and didn't think it looked better than anything Pitt has had there since 1996 is certifiably crazy. I'm OK with the team keeping the current colors, they are more regal and commanding of respect than the powder blue and mustard yellow anyway.

But all this nonsense of throwing more good money on bad has to stop. New logos will never...ever bring in the casual fan. Only winning will accomplish that. But tinkering with tradition, for the most part, does aggravate and sometimes even alienate the hardcore supporter.

And on this point, I think Jeff Long gets a large bum rap for this whole issue. He did end the nonsense of being Pittsburgh instead of Pitt. And he does present himself as someone who is more interested in maintaining tradition as his legacy instead of creating his own, which clearly motivated his predecessor.

But if Long is the culprit who is not allowing Pitt to reclaim and proudly display its past glory through the branding that is not only clearly favored by most hardcore Pitt fans, but the coaching staff and players as well, it will be the issue most will unfairly remember him by. And that would be a shame since he has down so much to stabilize the program and lead it through unstable times to hopefuly better days.