It’s a minor thing compared to the on-the-field performance, but there were some noticeable changes at Heinz Field so far this year. I know some of the guys at CatBasket have been helping with suggestions and ideas for Heinz Field to be more of a Pitt home field. Sorry, ripping off “Sweet Caroline” from the Red Sox doesn’t work for me because 1) cheesy Neil Diamond doesn’t do it; 2) it’s just ripping off someone else’s gimmick; 3) as a Yankees fan, it set my teeth to grinding.
There are some hits like the great banner running behind the visitor sideline of Pitt greats through the history. Love it.
Then there’s the clear Pederson influence. The exiting the locker room and coming out of the tunnel camera for the Pitt team led by Coach Wannstedt before the game. That was a Pederson thing from the Harris regime. Then there’s the return of a certain logo.
That’s right the gold and blue blob-cat is back and Jeff Long’s version appears to be out. The old panther head was the only one seen around the field. On the tunnels at the end of a couple banners.
It’s a little thing, but I must have missed the memo on the switch. Was there an official change? Looks that way. This brings up an issue that bothered me when I took a quick look at some Pitt gear in the stadium. The confusion and complete muddling of the logo.
Pitt really needs to just make a decision about old gear. There was gear for sale with all different Pitt logos (and I’m not even including the throwback stuff) — the “Iron bar Pitt“, the new/old panther head, the newer panther head, the old font with “Pittsburgh,” I even saw a couple of the panther tooth items. This extends to the Pitt official store (obviously, since I used their site to show the examples). Where the gear is just all over the place.
The first thing is that it reflects on the obvious cheapness of the merchandising arm not to just say, “screw it,” and ship the old clothing that didn’t sell to South America or some charity overseas. It also shows the general disarray of figuring out the logo.
They seemed to have gotten it right with the arched “Pitt.” I like it well enough. It’s simple and clean. It’s the dominate logo. Now, lose all the old fonts and junk from the past 10 years of misses.
Trying to figure out the right panther, though, has remained a mystery. I disliked both recent incarnations. Pederson panther head is a dense blot of blue and gold that makes my eyes hurt if I look at it too long. The Long panther-dog head was hardly an improvement.
I’ve thought the students have come out strong this year. I disagree with Kevin Gorman who asked, “What? You want a cookie?” It isn’t easy to build the student support when the team has performed the way it has in the Wannstedt era. The Buffalo game was more of a struggle than it should have been and that first game sapped a lot of energy and hope. In the 3+ years of Wannstedt, the biggest wins at Heinz Field were the opening night 20056 thrashing of what turned out to be a bad Virginia team (but at least it was beating a BCS team) and last year’s win over ranked Cinci.
In 1967 the helmets had an interesting panther design which I can’t say I dislike: link to farm2.static.flickr.com
And Lastly this classic bit from Souf Oaklin’ never fails to crack me up:
link to soufoaklin.blogspot.com
Is there a graphic design program? Heck offer some prize if a student or alumni can come up with an original decent looking panther logo… it might come out better than what you would get hiring some marketing firm that just cranks out meaningless logos for anybody and everybody.
You have a mediocre team, half-cocked promotions, ambiguous identity and a careless disregard for history then wonder why your fans are apathetic.
Anyhow, I noticed on TV that the band doesn’t play enough during games. When I watch college ball, a little recorded music over the p.a. isn’t bad, but I want to hear the band burst into song every time we do something good.
b) The band does play after everything we do well. They’ve got this great little “Go Pitt!…Go Pitt!…First Down!” thing that the whole student section (and we should get the whole stadium involved) joins in on. They do a good job playing cadences and stuff after big plays as well. I live with a couple of guys in the drumline and they have a LOT of in-game stuff they have prepared. Maybe you can’t hear it well on TV, but they certainly play it.
And not to use because it is a copy is just silly..it’s done so the fans have a good time..who cares where it came from.
As far as playing/singing Alma Mater…we’re trying to attract new fans not drive them away.
Didn’t we have our own little tradition..PENN STATE SUCKS..P E N N S T Sucks…How sad was that. I dread having to hear that again someday.
I’m willing to bet the confusion is temporary- between stopping the production of the pantherdog logo and an upcoming change in the logo to something new and non-embarrasing. …at least I hope
And Sweet Caroline was cool. Inserting “Let’s Go Pitt” is kinda tacky though.
blame my inner nerd but I would love to hear the band play this between downs whenever the defense needs to make a big stop… never heard it played by any other college bands and its a classic…for some of us anyway 🙂
On the surface that seems fine and good. Our offenses put up good #’s while harris was here and was far more exciting to watch! But lets face it, this simply wont happen.
A) Wanny and Walt have extremely different coaching philosphies and would never fit together!
B) Walt wouldnt come back. I just dont see him accepting such a positon on a team he previously was head coach for several years… not happening.
(the da da’s are drum beats)
It must be the way the networks cover the game, but I hardly hear the band play at all during the game. But I did clearly hear it everytime they played music over the p.a. system (I heard them play “Renegade” by Style, ala the Steelers, during the Bowling Green game. Talk about “groan”, and I actually like the Steelers.)
Maybe the networks just put a million mics in the band section for certain teams. For instance, during Michigan and/or Notre Dame games they make sure that you CLEARLY hear it on TV when they play their fight songs every 10 freaking seconds.
As for the logo thing, script would be great, but the block PITT looks pretty good too. Now if we could just find a real looking panther… oh wait, we had one, way back before we started using the script, and it was paired with a block Pitt…
You can really tell people are upset with the football team if they are complaining about things like this…..
“Moon river…(LETS GO PITT!)
wider than a mile…. “
Also, I think it might be that quite a few times when the band is playing, it’s mostly the drumline doing things to rally up the crowd. Like I said, I live with a few of the leaders of the drumline, and we’ve been talking this week about coordinating the student section and the line- i.e., I’ll look at them between plays, they’ll give me a signal, and we’ll start a band/student section chant/song/cadence sort of thing.
Comment by Sara D 09.11.08 @ 11:21 am
Sara D “gets itâ€
Comment by Dan 09.11.08 @ 11:40 am
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Neither Dan nor Sara D gets it. SOME of the fans liked it. That’s the reason for this thread, because SOME of the fans did not like it. That’s the entire concept of intelligent discourse. To attempt to marginalize a discussion because you disagree with another’s point of view is the definition of hubris. The point that many of us are trying to make is that while we support the idea of rallying the fan base with chants and songs, we’d appreciate it if a program with one hundred years of tradition could carve out its own niche rather than resorting to mimicry of other sports teams/fans. Do the exact same thing but replace “Sweet Caroline” with “Yellow Submarine” and this thread would’ve been totally different. (Note, I’m randomly picking a song that lots of people would know, if there are other programs that use that song, I apologize. My point is that “Sweet Caroline” is already a signature staple of the Red Sox fan experience. Use a song by The Clarks for all I care. Just be original.)
If you like that we do it so much, why don’t the rest of the alumni join in? My biggest complaint from being at Pitt football AND basketball games is that the alumni very rarely get into what the student section does. The Zoo’s considering doing a “Zoo for a Day” game where everybody has Zoo shirts and it’d be great to have that whole stadium jumping and screaming, if only for a few possessions.
I’m a senior in high school and I’m more excited/pumped up for the game and team than they are. Let’s repeat that…I DON’T EVEN GO TO PITT. When I look down at the student section in the 2nd quarter, I see the first few rows filled with people who actually care about what’s happening on the field but then the other 3/4 is just groups of kids talking and hanging around. Then, halftime comes and it seems like half the students leave for food and never even come back. What the hell is that about? Are there really only 100 students at Pitt out of 20,000 that are passionate about the football team?
And why do so many of them finally decide to make noise WHEN WE HAVE THE BALL??
But if anyone is worse than the students, it’s 98% of the other people there. Other than the few, like Chas, who at least attempt to cheer, it’s a bunch of people who want to sit there, slouch down, and not make a noise. We have the luxury of a stadium that has BUILT IN NOISEMAKERS! Those plastic seats are perfect to bang…try that with the bleachers at WVU, Michigan, or anywhere else. And have you ever gone to the top of the upper deck sections and banged on the huge metal section sign? You can hear it across the stadium! (I know…I tried it at the Rutgers game a few years ago.)
If you think what I’m saying is wrong, then you’re not at the same Heinz Field that I go to.
It’s PATHETIC.
Dino Cat kicks the shit out of Pitt DOG/Cat/Pug logo thing that was rolled out last yerar but we could do better, and it would be nice if we had an original sing a long song.
So my point is that I’m slow to criticize the fans who actually attend the game because 1) I only WISH I could attend every home game. and 2) we were outdrawn by stinkin Baylor last year & if that’s the company we want to keep then we all may as well go to the f’ing Sat. Pirates game to collect our commemorative phallic minibat and bobble our collective heads in the stands because that’s basically as good as it’s going to get.
Typical Pittsburgh sports fan with the, “Win some games first -and then I’ll go.” BULLSHIT. You get on board because it is a damn good time no matter where you sit or who you meet @ the game. Pitt Athletes won’t throw it in the tank for the late season, that’s for sure and after it all when the team does well you can actually feel justified in saying “we” when “we” finally collect our 10th national title. Pfft…Win and the fans will show up.
Here’s news- there’s only so myuch you can do to heal a program by changing coaches or logos or even stadiums… the fans have got to play their role too. Again, this not directed at Pitt fans who attend the games, but I’ve got a souvenir minibat over here for any Pittsburghers who want to attend the Pirates game the night of our game v. Iowa.
Pfft… “win and the fans will show up.”
1. Like it or not Penn State, Notre Dame and WVU all compete for college football fans in the Pittsburgh area…a good portion of Pittsburgh youth attend WVU and Penn State.
2. Pittsburgh area is blessed with many extremely good HS football programs that compete for entertainment dollars and attention.
3. The Steelers have a fanatical fan following that consumes western PA every Sunday…again tapping potential Pitt entertainment dollars
4. A good percentage of Pitt grads leave the area…for good jobs…they may return for a game or two….but not every game
5. To compare Pitts circumstances to larger programs with no pro football competition for fans is not comparing apples to apples….look at he challenges Rutgers, Temple have in attracting fans….winning helps…but Pitt averages around 43,000 fans per game…WVU averages around 58,000 in a stadium that holds 60,000…..Southern Cal averages around 91,000 per game…in a stadium that holds 96,000 so even S. Cal is not selling out every game….even in the golden years of Pitt football…not every game was sold out…Heinz Field has a capacity of 65,000….not a big stadium considering how popular the Steelers are…but who can afford the tickets ?
IMO a 50,000 seat stadium built on the Pitt campus will buzz with excitement game after game…there’s something about a stadium that 90-100% versus a stadium that 70% full…
Winning the big games consistently will help improve the fan base….at least producing an expectation in the fan base that the team is capable of winning every game….will go a long way…that expectation has not been met yet….I’m still not convinced that Wannstadt and Cav know what they’re doing….I’m hopeful…but not convinced….It’s not logos….it’s not the music….but based on the current Heinz Field Location the only remedy is to “just win baby”
I’m proud of my University, proud of my teams, and proud of the city I spent 22 years in. If singing the Alma Mater is the thing, I’m all over it. I even sang it every time they played it during the Olympics. (Its the German national anthem, for those who didn’t pick up on that.) If we want to start a new tradition, chant, singalong, or signature niche for the fan-base to be identified by, fine, let’s figure it out. But let’s have the students and the fans/alums build those traditions. Not the Red Sox, the Cowboys, Real Madrid, or whomever else Pederson is going to look to next for inspiration.
And thank God I got a script Pitt shirt while Jeff Long was around, who knows when those will be back again.
Hail to Pitt!