Opening Statement by Director of Athletics Jake Crouthamel
“Over the past two years we have been engaged with NIKE, our apparel partner, not only of the athletic department but also of the University and the bookstore. They are a world-class company and marketing organization who has thought enough of our program to engage in such an exercise. We are very proud and privileged to be a NIKE partner. We’ve never had an official athletics logo. I think that would be a surprise to many. We now will have an official logo, representing all of our sports.”
“We are the only school in the country with orange as its primary (official) color. You can identify some other schools that have orange as a color, but it’s not their primary (only) color and we want to accentuate that we are the only school with orange as its main (only) color.”
“The “new” orange is a bit brighter, but I think the change in the orange will be more subtle than the change in the blue, which will be noticeably darker.”
“To clarify one of things that is part of this process. We are going to refer to ourselves as “The Orange.” That does not preclude us being represented in print as Orange men or Orange women. It is no longer Orangemen or Orangewomen. I also want to make sure that everyone knows that we are all orange together. We will encourage more orange in the Carrier Dome, so that we can in fact be orange together.”
Crouthamel on consulting players or coaches about the change:
“Not players. Players graduate. They are here a few years and then they are gone. We did involve coaches in this, particularly the four coaches whose uniforms are supplied by NIKE. The four sports I referred to are men’s and women’s basketball, men’s lacrosse, and football. All of those coaches have been involved in this process.”
Crouthamel on why the change in the nickname:
“Orange is going to be our new brand. We are the only school in the country that has orange as its primary (official) color. We are trying to emphasize that.”
Crouthamel on uniformity:
“We are trying to brand a consistent logo. What you have seen on our men’s basketball uniforms in the past few years, the large S over a basketball, will no longer be there. It’s going to be the consistent SU logo.”
Crouthamel on the effect on merchandising:
“It standardizes what we do. We’ve had somewhere in the neighborhood of 19 or 20 different logos appear on apparel and merchandise. Where is the standardization? Where is the consistency? This effort was to standardize into one logo. Also our colors, quite frankly, are all over the place, both the orange and the blue. We are going to try and standardize that as much as we possibly can. Now, that isn’t going to happen overnight. When we order uniforms and warm-ups we will gradually get into a consistent orange and blue look.”
Crouthamel on who initiated the change:
“It was initiated by NIKE, but it was something we thought was a good idea. When NIKE brought this up to us, we were quite frankly very surprised and very pleased.”
Crouthamel on how long NIKE has been working on it:
“We have been in the process for the better part of two years.”
Crouthamel on the fans initial reaction to the change:
“Change and transition are often times difficult. As I explained, we have not dropped Orange men and Orange women. We have dropped the connection between them. We will continue to make the distinction, but we are orange together.”
Crouthamel on the financial impact of the decision:
“I want to make it clear that the athletics department does not receive one cent from merchandising and licensing trademarks. For us, this is a very important initiative for the reasons I gave. Financial is not one of them.”
Crouthamel on why the football helmets won’t be changed:
“Tradition. The helmets go back to before I got her which is almost a quarter century ago. The orange pants go back longer than that. We will eventually get into the new look with all of our sports. We will work our way through it, but there will be orange pants and there will be orange helmets.”
Betsy English (Director of the Bookstore and Trademark Licensing) on NIKE’s process:
“What NIKE did was they came in and really did a lot of research and analysis on the University and the programs and tried to determine how to capture the traditions we have and how we can pull those together. We wanted to make sure that you know when you are looking at the new logo that it represents Syracuse University and we are proud of it. The use of the term “The Orange” is essential to that and that’s what their research showed.”
English on the financial aspect of the decision:
“I think what you will see is a lot of new apparel and gift items in the marketplace around the Syracuse community. We really tried to concentrate on the design elements rather than the financial aspects.”