NCAA - Florida Atlantic University

Florida Atlantic U. to Keep Owl Mascot

Owl mascot will still fly at FAU

Tim O'Meilia

BOCA RATON -- It may be burrowing, fighting, flying, scowling, clawing, even thinking, but the mascot for Florida Atlantic University will remain an owl of some kind.

And the school colors will be dark blue and red.

So everyone with a specialty Florida Atlantic University owl license plate is safe, all 2,214 of them.

But the Blue Wave baseball caps are history.

The owl and the all-American colors were the landslide choice of 16 school-related focus groups involving 200 students, faculty, alumni donors and townspeople and an online survey of 1,300 more.

"I was a little surprised at the overwhelming support for the owl, but the success of the football team this past year may have cinched the deal with people," said university President Frank Brogan.

The school has had a variety of logos and insignias. The baseball squad calls itself the Blue Wave, for the relentless power of the ocean. Some campus vehicles sport an owl with wings outspread. There's even been two versions of the official state of Florida FAU license plate since 1987.

The original school colors were French blue and silver. The silver has disappeared through the years and red became an accent color for Coach Howard Schnellenberger's football team.

The mascot has morphed from the pensive burrowing owl found on the campus to more fierce winged owls with talons flashing. The owl varies from sport to sport.

"When I first arrived as president, every team and club on campus gave me a T-shirt and they were all different logos," Brogan said. "That's the first time I thought we may need to look at consolidating the brand.

"It's important that people identify with the university easily and quickly. It helps you take stock of what you are and who you are," he said.

Baseball coach Kevin Cooney, who backed the Blue Wave theme, is a member of the school's branding committee. "I'm disappointed but not surprised," he said of the choice of owls and said he will back the choice nevertheless.

"We're trying to raise $6.5 million for a new baseball stadium, so all the Blue Wave paraphernalia will be for sale on eBay tonight," he joked.

By September, Rickabaugh Graphics will create several versions of separate academic, athletic and institutional "marks" for more focus groups to examine. One certainty is that the athletic logo will be "an owl of some sort," said university spokeswoman Aileen Izquierdo.

Brogan said the new marks will be unveiled in January but the change will be phased in.

"At least I still have a job," said Cooney. "They could have said we're getting rid of the Wave and the guy who's riding it."

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