Athletic Department to unveil new Pilots logo on Friday
By Jordan Stone
The University of Portland Athletic Department will unveil the school's new logo on Friday when the UP women's soccer team takes on the Canadian women's national team, sporting the design as the first team to wear the new uniforms.
A two-year collaboration between Nike designers and various UP community members has yielded a new icon to represent UP athletics. The consultation from Nike came at no cost due to the school sponsor relationship that UP holds with the Beaverton-based sporting goods juggernaut, according to Roy Heynderickx, the vice president for financial affairs at UP.
The change from the old 'Pilot' wheel was spurred on by several factors, including the fact that the wheel logo is very commonplace among universities and other institutions, such as Bethel College. This inhibited UP from marketing the logo on apparel and other memorabilia and gaining profit from its appearance on these things.
"The wheel was not a mark UP could own," Tricia Miller, athletic marketing director, said.
According to Miller, a search conducted by a law firm found 159 wheels similar to the UP logo. Legality issues could have arisen between whoever owns the logo and UP. Issues like copyright infringement posed a concern to the University.
Miller expects the new design to give UP a more defined identity.
"[It is] about making us different and building some brand equity," Miller said.
With the new logo comes a chance for UP to increase its retail presence and also an opportunity to provide consumers with products that are appealing.
The involved parties spent time digging through old archives in the Kenna basement in order to get an idea of previous designs used in UP's history.
"We wanted to make sure it was something with meaning behind it," Miller said. "The most visual identity for a university is [its] athletic marks."
The relationship of the school to the bluff and the Willamette River were important aspects in designing the logo. The school also wanted to shift from the old image of the Pilot as a river pilot to more of the Pilot as a leader, according to Miller.
Many thought the river pilot was an out-of-date icon that not many students could familiarize themselves with. However, the qualities of a river pilot such as leadership and courage are concepts that students can still tie themselves to, Miller said, and that is what the school wanted to incorporate in the new design.
A student committee created to determine the unveiling of the logo decided that the UP women's soccer spring game would be a timely event to show off the new design.
The wheel insignia has been in use at UP since the beginning of UP athletics, according to Miller.
University Archivist Bob Antonelli, C.S.C., insists that the archives department didn't have much to do with the selection of the new logo, but the tradition of years past should have served as good influence in the design of UP's new symbol that will ubiquitously appear on campus in the very near future.
Antonelli helped provide "older editions" of materials relating to old sporting events.
Miller used the old logos to assess the tradition and style of the earlier years of the University. Antonelli said the archives contain some sports programs for football, basketball, and baseball teams of the 1940s and 1950s.
But these materials only supplement the older programs because the newer ones still reside within the annals of the Chiles Center. Antonelli said there is a "much more complete set" of pamphlets and handouts for UP sports teams of recent decades in the domed arena.
Newly designed merchandise has been ordered by the UP bookstore and will be available soon. Also, attendants at the Friday game, which starts at 7 p.m., will get a free t-shirt with the new logo.
