Mascot name revealed over weekend

The University of Pittsburgh at Bradford has revealed the name of its costumed panther mascot – Piper!

Beyond a happy alliteration, Piper salutes the campus’s ties to aviation history. The current campus stands on what was once the Harri Emery Airport. On a corner of the airport property where Blaisdell Hall stands today, the Taylor Aircraft Co., owned by Bradford oilman Willim Piper, manufactured the iconic light plane, “The Cub,” during the Depression.    

A fire destroyed the factory in 1937, and Piper moved his company to Lock Haven, renaming it Piper Aircraft Corp. The Cubs developed on the land where Pitt-Bradford would stand became important aircraft in World War II, serving as reconnaissance and observation planes, transport vehicles, and training airplanes for pilots.    

In 2006, Pitt-Bradford dedicated a monument to the little plane’s place in aviation history at Blaisdell Hall.    

The university made the reveal with a video shown during the Light Up the Quad event held as part of Alumni and Family Weekend. The university undertook a multi-step process to choose the perfect moniker, asking for suggestions, then holding an election in which more than 500 people voted. Piper received 162 votes.    

Emeriti alumni like Mary Rizzo ’64-’66 had been rooting for the name, which ties together the history of Bradford with the Pitt-Bradford campus.    

It didn’t take students long to warm up to it. “I’m not a fan,” said Lily Hawk, a senior criminal justice major from Saxonburg, but once she heard the explanation, she was on board.    

Makartnee Mortimer, a senior exercise science and women’s lacrosse major from Westfield, N.Y., said, “I was surprised, but I like it,” adding that she thought one of the naming options that began with a “B” would have come out on top.     

Voters had the chance to choose from Jett, Brad, Kinzua, Blaze, Blizzard and, of course, Piper.     

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.

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