Pitt Tradition
April 26th, 2008 | by The Prowler |There is something that has been on my mind for a while now and keeps rearing its head in various ways. That issue is whether or not Pitt has a real sports tradition of its own, and if so, what that tradition is. As I see it, most of us as Pitt fans want to believe that Pitt has a solid tradition, but that it is hard to really determine what it is.
The first example of this, and the most widely talked about, is Pitt’s name/symbol and how it has changed over the years. Pitt used to be known as Pitt, and was readily identifiable in its royal blue and yellow/gold uniforms with the Pitt script logo. Over the last 15-20 years, Pitt’s logo has changed several times; our colors have gone to Notre Dame’s colors more than our own Pitt colors; the name was changed from Pitt to Pittsburgh then back to Pitt again; and even in between name/color/logo changes, other aspects of the uniforms have changed. I don’t want to rehash all the discussion about whether or not we should return to the Pitt script or not. I honestly don’t care what our symbol, name, or colors are. What I do care about is that we pick something and stick with it for the long haul. And by the long haul, I mean forever.
Uniforms and logos are the biggest identifiers of a program. How many times in the last 20 years have we seen PSU, tOSU, USC, Michigan, Miami, Florida St., etc. etc. etc. change their uniforms, logos, or names? The answer is that, for the most part, we haven’t seen most major programs change anything like that. The reason being that they have a tradition that has been determined, in most cases, on the football field. Why would USC change their look when you can look at a USC jersey or helmet and immediately know what it stands for? It stands for pride, tradition, and winning.
Schools that change these things all the time are teams that have no identity on the field (or basketball court if it is a basketball school) and believe that marketing will change the reality that there is no sports tradition. It is hard to establish a tradition if the iconography keeps changing so that there is no immediate visual association to that tradition. What is the first thing that you picture in your mind when you think of Pitt? It probably depends on how old you are because of the many changes.
Another aspect of tradition has been displayed in the very lively discussion of Cassin Diggs’ departure from the Pitt basketball team. See Pitt Blather for a sample. This discussion pertains to the issue of tradition because it forces each of us to decide both what we think Pitt sports (in this case basketball) is known for and what it should be known for.
Jamie Dixon is generally believed to be a classy guy. He runs a clean program. We never hear of scandal. He seems to genuinely love his players, the school, and the community. While we all want to win national championships, many of us are happy if we stay competitive, but have a squeaky clean program. We don’t want a ‘win at all costs’ tradition. We are proud that there are established rules and expectations and that our coaches (in football and basketball) follow them.
The Diggs episode forces us to examine that tradition. Does his departure from the team, one which is clear he didn’t want, represent a black eye to that squeaky clean tradition? Is it ok for us to be a school that has high standards for its players (remember the thugs the team had in the 90s), but also does what it needs to do to win games? Is it acceptable to take away a scholarship from a guy who is just taking up space on the team. Does the situation reflect poorly on what we expect from Pitt; or is it time to move a bit more towards a commitment to winning, without losing our soul in the ‘game’ of winning?
If Pitt had an established tradition, this would be a non-issue. No one would question Notre Dame football for getting rid of a player that didn’t live up to their standards. In fact, their coaching carousel reflects the expectation that if you don’t perform, you are gone. The same is true for UNC (just ask Matt Doherty) and KU (Self was very much on the hot seat until this year) basketball. Many have also cited Jim Calhoun’s callousness in running his team and letting players go. He is well known as a hard-nosed coach. He is also well known as a winning coach.
But what is Pitt known for?
We are the school with 9 (supposedly) football national championships, yet we haven’t been relevant nationally since about 1982. Pitt basketball was solid in the 80s, so we pretended we were a hoops school first. But Pitt has no basketball national championships and were barely relevant in the 90s. The Howland/Dixon resurrection of basketball was less of a resurrection than it was a birthing of a tradition that had never existed before.
So who are we? What is our tradition? Much of that has yet to be determined. Right now we are a school whose tradition is having an AD who thinks that marketing strategies will drum up interest and will create a tradition. In that regard, he has spent more time ‘borrowing’ other schools’ traditions in an effort to establish one of our own. We are also a school who has established a tradition of general classiness within its coaching staffs. We are a school who is building a tradition of winning and pride in basketball (but it is a short term tradition that, if things changed next year, would be forgotten nationally within five years). We are a school that is trying to build a new tradition in football that hearkens back to the 70s and early 80s teams that were so successful.
It may be hard to determine exactly what our tradition at Pitt is. Our athletic department hasn’t made it any easier on us with all the changes to our identity. It may also take a while for us to truly redefine our tradition as both basketball and football have undergone, and are still undergoing major changes from what they have been in the past. But there is one tradition that will never change: we are all Panthers, through and through. Whether there are 100,000 of us or only 100, we love Pitt and we want to see it flourish. We have great pride in our University and stick with them through thick and thin. That is a tradition that I hope continues on and can be passed down from generation to generation.
Hail to Pitt!!
5 Responses to “Pitt Tradition”
By Marty on Apr 28, 2008 | Reply
My roots to Pitt sports dates back to Billy Knight. Pitt basketball was a great program ! Pitt Football HAS 9 National Championships ! Casting doubt on those championships would be equivalent to ignoring any National Champ prior to the BCS bowl system . Give credit to the best of their generation - 20s, 30s, etc.
As to Diggs - it happens in basketball and football at the big time programs. I work with Michigan grads that tell me generally a freshman football player is redshirted and if he can’t start at Mich as a redshirt soph he gets cut providing scholarships for people who will contribute. (Before Dick Rod.)
What about the HS recruit who verbals to Pitt and then backs out very late in the recruiting process (ie. Morelli, Johnson) sticking Walt Harris and affecting offers that might have been extended to others ? If the Diggs thing becomes a common practice then we have an issue to address. I don’t think Dixon is falling into a routine of taking back scholarships.
Finally why am I a Pitt fan ? Because I’m proud of my Western Pa heritage of blue collar, hard working, and family oriented upbringing. These traits guided me through my years at Pitt which I display on my job daily. The greats at Pitt were home grown (Marino, Dorsett, Ditka, Martha, etc) we didn’t need to go to far end of this country to field a team. Look at that Billy Knight team , those guys were home grown - and Pittsburgh Proud !
By The Prowler on Apr 28, 2008 | Reply
Marty, I don’t disagree with anything you have said. I actually don’t have a problem with what happened to Diggs (I am glad we freed up the scholarship for someone who will hopefully make better use of it), but was trying to give credence to both sides of that issue. My point on that issue is that if we had a strong and long tradition in place then it wouldn’t have been questioned. But our basketball tradition is in the process of being made whereas UNC, Duke, etc. have a well ingrained tradition so fans know what to expect from the program in various situations. We are still learning what to expect from Pitt basketball, leaving fans with various views hoping that their vision of that tradition is the one that wins out. This goes back to what I said about ND football. If we had a real (current) established tradition of expectation, Diggs’ departure would have been expected, not controversial.
I have great respect for what Pitt has done in football in the past, but the bulk of their success was, as you say, in the 1920s and 30s. How many of us as Pitt fans were alive then? Pitt’s last national title was in 1976. That is a long time ago (32 years). After 32 years of no titles and 25 or so years of barely being relevant nationally, we have to look and see that we are hearkening back to a tradition that many of us weren’t a part of.
I am not in any way trying to diminish Pitt. I love Pitt as much or more than anyone else. If you looked in my dresser, every single t-shirt, sweatshirt, and jersey I own says Pitt (or Pittsburgh or whatever our name was at the time I bought the shirt). My point is that we are a school right now who needs to do more to establish a tradition than recalling one. This is what I was getting at with the issue of our AD constantly changing our uniforms. If we still wore the blue and gold with the gold helmets and the Pitt script symbol, people might think of Tony Dorsett and Dan Marino every time they see it. Instead, we are on our third incarnation (at least) of uniforms just since 2000.
Whether it is establishing or re-establishing a tradition, we need to do it. It became a running joke with me and my brother that, when we had season tickets for several years until 2004 when I moved to Kansas, at almost every game Pitt held a ceremony between quarters or at halftime honoring Dan Marino. I wish that was a joke, but it was true. Between 1982 and 2004, was there nothing else Pitt could do than honor Dan Marino (or the Sugar Bowl he played in, or some accomplishment he had)?
I want to see us look to the future and not only to the (distant) past. I don’t want us to forget the past. I am certainly proud of guys like Marino and Curtis Martin, Sean Miller and Charles Smith. But the further in the past that our glory gets, the more we need to see something happen now to re-establish it.
Consider that Pitt had under 8000 people to its nationally televised Blue/Gold game. I am not saying that is bad. But consider that Nebraska had 76,000 people to their spring game. Until the Pete was built, Pitt wasn’t selling out basketball games. Their past tradition didn’t establish such a rabid following that even in down times there was a waiting list for tickets. At the same time, PSU isn’t doing a fantastic job in football, but there is a 20+ year waiting list for season tickets.
I guess my overall point is that the marketing schemes, the constant uniform changes, and all these other things aren’t establishing a real visible national tradition for Pitt. I see Steelers license plates out here in Kansas everywhere. Sunday I had a Pitt jacket on and someone asked me, in all seriousness, who were the Pitt Panthers.
I know that amongst us fans there is a tradition. We understand and remember the past (even if we weren’t alive for all of it). Many of us know what it is like to be there for Pitt even when they were losing to Temple and Rutgers (before Rutgers was good). But we need to be re-established in a national sense where people see the name Pitt and tremble. Like if we saw USC on our schedule for football and we would crap our pants; that is what I want to see for Pitt. As long as our athletic department keeps changing the most readily identifiable symbols of Pitt (its name, colors, and mascot design), even the success that we do have on the field and the court are going to be diminished to some degree.
Thanks very much for your comments and please don’t take this as me diminishing Pitt in any way. It is much more about wanting to see them re-emerge with a tradition of success that goes beyond marketing and into performance and commitment to winning and dominance.
By colt_convert on Apr 29, 2008 | Reply
I agree that in the past decade or so, the Athletic department has made it difficult, particularly with the switch between “Pitt” and “Pittsburgh,” and of course, the fiddling with the colors.
I work in a business that is very much in tune the marketing aspects, and brand identity. I’m not sure I care which direction Pitt goes, but I do wish they’d stick with it.
One thing immediately jumps out at me, and it may help the Pitt AD to take note of it: when discussing University of Pittsburgh sports on ESPN and other news networks, they always refer to the school as “Pitt.” Need we say more? The brand is out there…we just need to build around it.
By Marty on Apr 29, 2008 | Reply
Prowler,
Note that Pitt basketball has always been a hot ticket. I waited over five years on a waiting list to get my season tickets in the Fieldhouse. Prior to that I would call the fieldhouse 48 hours before game time to secure one of the 200 tickets reserved for the visiting team in order to see a game. From 1970 to the present the only downtime for Pitt basketball was the Ralph Willard years, a disgraceful time off the court too.
Your reference to USC was weak , it wasn’t that long ago (before Pete Carroll) when they were door mats and could not sell tickets for their football games. Being in my mid 50s I have witnessed the highs and the lows of Pitt sports, when they have been good its been very good but when bad very bad. The University administration historically has acted as if to succeed at sports you must be cheating the academics.Stricter foreign lang. requirements are introduced to make athletes entry harder, once you knock down the athletic program loosen the lang. requirements. Pitt will never have the 75,000 fans at a spring game even if they go undefeated for 5 years, because Pittsburghers priorites are not clouded by sports figures. Also the pro teams have a large following. We want winning teams at Pitt but not at the price of forsaking other facets of life. I’ve been to Nebraska, Tenn, PSU, Florida State, Oklahoma, WVU,etc. those folks have their priorites twisted.
Love my panthers , never miss a home football or basketball game, but there are many facets of family, job, and community that prevents me from acting like the radical fans from the aforementioned schools.
By Hotlanta on May 2, 2008 | Reply
Great site. Thanks for hosting. I hit PittBlather daily, and it would be great to have multiple sites to enjoy. I have been telling my fellow alumni to check you out. Good luck.