JACLYNN STAUB | staff writer

The Cougars Athletics logo establishes an identity for all sports.

SAPU has a great deal of history having to do with every aspect of the campus. Students can see old pictures what the campus used to look like, how students used to dress, and the foundation of the university. Little bits and pieces of the campus have remained the same over the years but the athletic logo is new compared to the rich heritage of the campus.

The inspiration behind the design of an unofficial late 1980s Cougar logo came from USA Today. Their icon was a globe with lines coming out of it. The Athletics Department liked this idea and wanted something similar.

“For a few years, there was a Cougar head with a bunch of lines coming out of it,” Associate Athletics Director Gary Pine said. “Later, I found a logo in the old archives of a cougar sitting on a rock and we used that for a few years, but there was never an official one that was designed by the university and was protected by the university.”

In an attempt to create an official logo for Athletics, Pine went to a man by the name of Jerry Lund who had just graduated from APU with a degree in graphic design. Pine had some ideas that looked different from what APU had done in the past and he wanted it to be different from every other school with a feline mascot.

“I started talking to Gary and we centered around doing the football helmets, since that’s what you would mainly see,” logo creator Jerry Lund said.

Lund is now owner of Twin Engine Creative in Glendora, a company that specializes in graphic design. After graduation, Lund was a post-graduate student at APU and worked at the university as well. Lund knew he wanted to be involved with creating a logo for the school ever since he came to APU.

“The moment I came to APU in ’93, I was looking at T-shirts and the shirts the student orientation of leaders were wearing,” Lund said. “Design was my focus and my major so I started asking, who does all this stuff for the school? So, I started investigating how to get involved in that and finally got an internship, and then eventually became an art director.”

Pine and Lund put their heads together and began the creating process. They discussed having a paw with a cougar head until they realized a lot of schools followed that pattern. They wanted something original for APU.

In the years that APU did not have a logo, they copied other schools that had a cougar in its logo.

“Back in the mid ‘80s, we had the word Cougars on one of our football helmets and it looked just like the one Washington State has,” Pine said. “One year we had a football player that was a graphic artist and he drew a cougar that looked like a kangaroo and it wasn’t good.”

In an attempt to get away from the idea of a cougar paw, Lund and Pine wanted to take the logo to the next creative level. One of the ideas they had was to have claw marks come straight down the top of the helmet and replace the stripes.

Lund said he had an idea of the cougar tearing open one side of the helmet in a style similar to the Pittsburgh Steelers.

“Then it evolved into using an icon that we could use for the other sports too,” Lund said.

During the time that the athletic logo was being created, a color change for APU was also in effect. The president of APU during that time, Richard Felix, wanted to pull away from the orange and black color scheme and move into something more marketable.

In the fall of 1998, the colors and the athletic logo were changed at the same time. Football made the playoffs for the first time and won a national championship in the process. Women’s soccer went undefeated and won a national championship as well.

“There was a new pride in Azusa Pacific Athletics and this logo and the color change happened to fall in line at the perfect time and that helped with the buy in so much quicker,” Pine said. “We won two national championships in the first 3 months this logo was made public and we were on national TV in the national championship football game and every one is seeing that logo on the football helmets.”

The great thing about APU’s athletic logo is that it is versatile. Not only does it look good on shirts, sweatshirts and hats, but on skin as well.

“I like it and I think it’s unique and cool. They usually have really cool tattoos that we can put on when we go to nationals to represent our team,” junior communication studies major and track team member Devyn Wills said.

Pine said he appreciated that the logo was created by an alumnus who was able to give the Cougars a unique identity.

APU’s athletic logo was so well liked that it won first place in the Western Regional CASE (Council for Advancement and Support of Education) competition.

“Design–wise, I was trying to be conscious of the four cornerstones,” Lund said. “I know a cougar probably only has 3 claw marks but the fourth claw mark is from the thumb.”

There is pride to be found in the university logo and the athletic identity represents the attitude and tone of those involved with sports and athletics.

“I think that our school logo is something to be proud of,” senior music major Hannah Elliot said. “I feel as though it is unique and unlike any other schools. Even though I’m not involved with any sports on campus, when I look at it, I feel a sense of pride to be a Cougar.”

The inspiration behind the logo of the Cougars is from the Cincinnati Bengals because they had orange pumpkin helmets that were plain with a “BENGALS” typeface until the 1980s when they added stripes to resemble tiger stripes. Based off this information, Pine went to Lund with the idea and told him that he wanted something unique like that.

“So I said to Jerry ‘how about scratch marks like the Cougars come through and scratch something,’” Pine said. “Jerry took that idea, ran with it and came up with the current logo, and this was in the spring of 1998.”

The identity that the current logo creates is important to uplifting the spirit of the university at large.

“It is great to start seeing the logo get accepted,” Lund said.