Savage Words: Origins of the USF Cougars logo

I’ve always been fascinated with sports mascot logos.

When I was a little kid, my brother-in-law and I drew at least 100 college mascot logos, all on regular-size sheets of paper. He was an art student at Southeast Tech. I was just a little kid, but was mesmerized by how he made those logos and mascots come to life.

They all hung on our basement wall. They COVERED the walls. I’m sure my mother was quite happy with the decor.

One of my favorites was Ole Miss. It’s an old guy – a Rebel, I guess – with a big mustache, cowboy hat, with a smirk on his face while he’s leaning on his cane. How my brother-in-law was able to replicate that one and make it jump off the page was always so cool for me.

So, when I got the opportunity to actually design a college sports logo, it truly was a childhood dream come true.

I was the Sports Information Director at Sioux Falls College in 1995. While I held that position, the college switched its name to the University of Sioux Falls. Because of the rebranding of the entire university, the athletic logo had to change as well.

They were still the Cougars in 1995, but SFC was changing to USF. Interestingly, SFC was cool before it was cool to change mascot names. The athletic teams at SFC were known as the Braves until 1978 before changing to Cougars out of respect to the Native American culture in the area.

As the Sports Information Director, I was charged with coming up with a new athletic logo for USF. Again, a childhood dream come true.

The colors stayed the same, white and purple. At the time, SFC’s athletic logo was actually pretty boring. A simple SFC with a very generic Cougar head next to it.

When I was given the task, my mind immediately went back to my childhood basement that was filled with college sports logos.

The one that stood out immediately was Brigham Young University. BYU’s mascot was also a cougar, and I knew our university could work off of that.

BYU’s logo, to me, was really cool. It was a Cougar slowly walking across the top of the three letters, almost looking to pounce.

BYU Cougars. USF Cougars. I was told once early in my career that the greatest form of flattery was stealing a creative idea. 

So, I did.

I wasn’t a graphic artist, but we had one at USF. His name was Bryan Holland, today a very well-known oil painting artist. His paintings have been featured in numerous exhibitions and his work has been published in national publications.

But in 1995, he and I were young, eager, green, professionals trying to make our mark. I came to him with my BYU / USF logo idea.

It was my idea … his talent.

He scanned the BYU logo for a few minutes. Almost immediately, he had USF in purple with a Cougar crawling across the top. It was impressive.

But the BYU logo had a twist, a cool twist. The front paw of the cougar crawling across the top encapsulated the white space in the U. It really gave the cougar some movement as his paw reached deep into the U.

I asked Bryan if we could do the same thing with USF. So, he did. The original USF logo had the cougar crawling across the top of the letters, but instead of the front paw, it was a rear paw filling the gap in the U on USF.

He finished it, gave it to me, and I literally hung it on the wall of my office. You know, sort of reliving some childhood days in my basement.

I stared at that logo over and over in my office at Glidden Hall on the USF campus at the corner of 22nd and Menlo Avenue 30 years ago. I stared it over, and over, and over.

Something wasn’t right.

The paw going into the U of USF was exactly what I asked Bryan for, but instead of looking like it was about to pounce like it did on the BYU logo, the cougar on the USF logo looked like he was wounded with his right rear leg dragging into the U.

The last thing I wanted to do was roll out a logo with our cougar looking like it had hindquarter injuries. But that’s what it looked like.

So, I asked Bryan to bring that paw up with the rest of the legs so it simply looked like the cougar was crawling on all three letters.

That’s what he did, and that’s what we went with, and that’s the logo still used to this day.

I get a true sense of pride when I attend a USF event and see the cougar making his ominous crawl across the letters.

Thankfully we healed him up before his debut.