Red Wolves Unleashed (Video Highlights)
Crystal Eldridge, Heather Strojek
Issue date: 3/13/08 Section: News
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Chancellor Robert Potts welcomed students, faculty, staff and all other audience members to the rollout event.
Potts referred to the day as a "happy day" and a "momentous occasion." He briefly recapped ASU's previous mascots and provided a quick history of the mascot selection process. A round of applause was given to the mascot review committee. He called out members of the mascot steering committee by name after stating, "Today we are here to celebrate the work of a great group of people."
He mentioned the Board of Trustees meeting last Friday was where he heard the first howl for the ASU Red Wolves.
"It's a great sense of relief," Potts said after the event. "It had the potential to be very divisive, but it is now a unifying event. Now we have almost unanimous support."
Potts addressed the symbolism of the red wolf; they run in packs and are vicious and aggressive. No other four-year university uses the red wolf as a mascot, according to Potts. The red wolf was indigenous to Arkansas and the southeast.
Potts then brought forward Morgan Pippin, Student Government Association president, and Corey Leonard, ASU football quarterback, to help reveal the new logo along with Jeremy Thomas, Lindsey Weaver, Robin Aaron who unrolled the new banner. The audience erupted in cheers and applause upon laying eyes on the new ASU mascot for the first time.
"I think the image is terrific. It suits the university well as well as the color scheme," Timothy Oliver, Director of Bands, said at the event. "It's going to be great on all the promotional material."
Potts went on to explain that the design was from ASU Publications and Creative Services; he announced the names of those who participated. Those people were thanked with a roar from the audience.
"Isn't it great to be an ASU Red Wolves fan?" cheered Dean Lee, ASU Athletic Director, as he began to speak.
Lee said this was an opportunity to reinvent the identity of ASU. "We know ASU fans will wear [the new logo] with pride," Lee said.
Lee said that the red wolf is territorial and is symbolic to ASU in that we want to protect ASU in everyway possible.
"We want to run in packs," Lee said.
"We are all excited and have been waiting for this moment for a long time," Morgan Pippin, SGA president, said. Pippin then introduced the first red wolves cheer.
The ASU cheerleaders and the A-Team led students in chanting "Arkansas State, Red Wolves."
Corey Leonard then thanked everyone for coming out to the event. "As a student athlete, it is a great thing to see this many people come out to support," Leonard said. "I was really excited to hear this is our new mascot."
Leonard finished his speech by stating that this would be a "year to remember" and introduced the band and the new version of the ASU fight song, which replaced the traditional "I-N-D-I-A-N-S" with "Red W-O-L-V-E-S."
"I like it," Ray Winters, Chair of the Radiological Sciences Department, said.
The event concluded with cookies and punch, as well as free T-shirts.
Potts encouraged everyone to buy new merchandise and jokingly added, "Because we get a royalty from each and every piece."
Ron Looney, the director of Publication and Creative Services, explained after the presentation that the process for creating the new logo started with Phoenix Design Works and then Potts asked Creative Services to come up with designs of their own.
"We started with a number of designs, literally hundreds," Looney said. From there they refined sketches and they were scanned into the computer and the rest of the process was digital. Looney also said the letter style for the logo is unique to ASU.
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Viewing Comments 1 - 4 of 4
Ryan
posted 3/13/08 @ 10:13 PM CST
Since when did it become appropriate, style-wise, to use ASUJ as the first, or any, reference to Arkansas State University?
If someone were to write about our cousins from the northwest corner of the state, surely you wouldn't call the school UAF, now would you?
We are A-State! We are not A-State-J!
Brian E. Rodriguez
posted 3/14/08 @ 1:46 AM CST
The Jonesboro campus is the main campus. The Herald is a main campus publication. I think it can be assumed that ASU refers to the Jonesboro campus.
Why clarify ASUJ football quarterback, when the other campuses don't have a football team? Why say ASUJ Athletic Director? Have we found another way to waste money by having an ASU-Beebe Athletic Director as well? And why recap ASUJ's mascots? Were ASU-Beebe's mascots different? And is the ASUJ fight song different from the satellite campuses? I think we can do without the "J. (Continued…)
Mark
posted 3/14/08 @ 9:06 AM CST
""Let the howling begin," Dean Lee, ASUJ Athletic Director, said at the unveiling of the new mascot late this morning."
Who in the hell is ASUJ?
Andrew
posted 3/14/08 @ 9:45 AM CST
You are all correct. At the beginning of the school year the university said they wanted to be officially referred to as ASUJ or ASU-Jonesboro, but we at The Herald said exactly the same thing you have. (Continued…)
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