We’re picking a perfect panther name

The University of Pittsburgh at Bradford has launched a contest to name its costumed mascot, a 6-foot-plus plush black panther that usually appears Winnie-the-Pooh style (no bottoms).

The university is accepting nominations for names through May 4. A committee will select and announce six finalists on National Mascot Day, June 17. Then a public vote will decide the big cat’s cognomen, which will be announced as part of Alumni and Family Weekend festivities in September.

The contest came about after a mascot gathering for all five Pitt campuses in support of Pitt Day of Giving. Every other campus’s athletic ambassador had a name, except for Pitt-Bradford’s panther, which was just The Panther. That felt a bit like telling the vet your cat’s name is “Kitty.”

If you’ve got a name in mind, submit it at upb.pitt.edu/name-the-panther. While it’s never had a name, Pitt-Bradford’s mascot has always been a panther.

When the Bradford campus was founded in 1963, it adopted the panther mascot of its sponsor campus. Pitt’s athletic teams had been called the Panthers since 1909, when students and alumni there selected the native predator of Western Pennsylvania. In Appalachia, Eastern cougars were called panthers. Besides, Pitt Panthers had a nice ring to it.

In the 1980s, Pitt-Bradford had a homemade costume of a cougar-inspired golden panther like that of Pittsburgh’s campus, but when the current professional costume was purchased by Pitt-Bradford, the panther went from gold to black, which was more widely thought to be the color of panthers, which are black jaguars not native to Pennsylvania.