The search for the mascot is almost over, and it looks like the Pioneers will have to move on and settle in a new frontier:
The Mascot Advisory Committee has narrowed the field down to three, and while Pioneers is still one of the choices, its chances seem slim based on recent testing. “Pioneers did not test well at all,” said Geoff Upward, director of communications and marketing at OU. “It would be the least desirable of the three.” The other two options are the Sabercats, and Grizzlies, (or Golden Grizzlies).
Upward said the final decision will probably be made sometime this month by President Gary Russi and his cabinet. Upward, along with SME Design Inc. in New York, the company designing the new graphic-image for the school mascot, has done a large amount of testing over the past four months to gather feedback on the subject.
In December, the committee conducted focus groups with several hundred people. These included students, coaches, faculty, alumni and others. The results did not bode well for Pioneers.
“From the committee’s standpoint, the favorite is the Grizzlies,” said Student Congress President Bryan Barnett, who serves on the committee. “(But,) I personally voted for the Pioneers.”
There are several reasons why Pioneers is likely to lose out in the end. The committee established certain attributes it was looking for in a new mascot, and Pioneers failed to measure up in many areas.
“What the committee wanted to focus on was motion. They wanted it to be lively,” Upward said.
Greg Economou, vice president of sports marketing at SME, cited several other criteria the committee set, such as excitement, aggression and uniqueness.
“The school wanted an animal image,” Economou said. “There are no other Sabercats out there, and that is unique.”
Aaron Baldwin, junior, communications, agreed that an animal mascot is the way to go. “I think Pioneer is cool, but I really wouldn’t want to go to a school in Division I with a Pioneer as a mascot,” he said.
While most members of the committee did not think Pioneers portrayed the aggression of a sabercat, Barnett feels that the current mascot was never given a fair chance.
“I think that it answered to the fierceness and ferocity,” Barnett said. “The committee considered it unmarketable.”
The images SME design has designed for OU so far are not the final drawings, Economou said. He said the final drafts will be of higher quality and in full color. One of the toughest challenges Economou and his staff faced was to create a graphic image for a Pioneer. The committee decided that even if Pioneers is kept, it will still have an animal image.
The design favored by the committee is a bear dressed in a buckskin outfit, resembling a Pioneer. Two main criteria where Pioneers failed were gender and race, a problem that many students want addressed. “It was always portrayed as a guy,” said Michele Burcar, junior, elementary education.
“Gender and race issues should be neutral, and one of the problems with Pioneer Pete was that he was a white male,” Economou said, referring to the school mascot that led the cheering atOU sporting events.
With Sabercats or Grizzlies, there would be no problems because neither design can be labeled by gender or race. Upward said the mascot search has been divided into three stages: name, graphic-image design and costume design.
Although all are very important, perhaps the one receiving the most emphasis is the graphic-image stage.
Once the image has been decided upon,OU can begin implementing its marketing strategies. These could include projects such as painting the mascot image on the basketball floor, to coming out with a line of clothing featuring the new logo.
“We’re trying to create excitement, with people buying shirts and coming to the games,” Upward said.
Another area of graphics design currently in the works are secondary marks, or small designs different from, but resembling the main logo.
“If it’s a bear, there might be a paw,” Upward said. “You might just have a word mark in graphics, like ‘OU’.
Those who are upset over the possible loss of the Pioneer can take heart. OU will not abandon the name completely. The idea of OU being a pioneer in education is still alive, and Upward said there will be no changes to anything already bearing the Pioneer name.
“We’ll continue to think of the university in that way,” Upward said. “That name still applies.”
Whether the choice is Pioneers, Sabercats or Grizzlies, one thing is cer-tain: the hope of the design is sure to draw attention to OU.
“We’ve put a lot of time and effort to get where we are,” Economou said. “Whatever we come up with, it’s going to be smokin’ “
Upward is also confident that the result will be a success. ” I think in either case, there are plenty of possibilities.” Combined with the jump to Division I-AAA, the mascot and new logo could help a successful athletic program that hasn’t received much recognization.
“There’s going to be a lot more marketing,” Economou said. “You want this platform to try to communicate the great strengths of the program.”
