The Evolution of the Washington State University Logo: A Symbol of Athletic and Academic Identity
Washington State University (WSU), affectionately known as "Wazzu," is a public land-grant research university in Pullman, Washington. Established on March 28, 1890, WSU has a rich history intertwined with academic excellence and athletic prowess. The university's athletic teams, the Cougars, have a storied legacy, and their logo has evolved over the years to become a recognizable symbol of the university's identity.
The Genesis of the Washington State Cougars Athletics
The Washington State Cougars athletic program is an integral part of Washington State University, featuring around 15 varsity teams, including nine women’s sports and six men’s. The Washington State Cougars, established as the athletic arm of Washington State University, traces its origins to a rich and storied past. The inception of this athletic division marked a new era in the university’s commitment to sports excellence. Since their establishment, the Cougars have been a unifying emblem for students, alumni, and sports enthusiasts, intertwining athletic achievement with academic vigor. The Cougars have notable triumphs across key sports - particularly their acclaimed performances in football, their strides in basketball, and their impressive showings in baseball. These accomplishments have catapulted the Cougars into the limelight, earning them accolades and a revered place in the collegiate sports world. The evolution of their legacy has seen them nurture numerous athletes who’ve gone on to shine on national and international stages. As of today, the Washington State Cougars continue to uphold their legacy of sporting distinction.
Early Logos: A Fierce Beginning
The very first logo for Washington State Cougars featured a bright and slightly naive image of a yellow cougar on a yellow rugby ball. The wild cat looked dangerous with its mouth open, and the pose as if it was ready to jump and attack. In 1956, the logo was redesigned and simplified, with no lettering added. The new emblem featured only an image of the cougar’s head in white with black lines and contours. The cat had its mouth open, and you could see its red tongue.
1964: A Modern Stylized Cougar
In 1964, the Washington State Cougars logo was changed again. The new emblem featured a modern stylized image of the cougar’s head turned in profile to the left. It was executed in thick solid elements of a dark burgundy color and looked contemporary and strong, with the sharp fangs and smooth lines of the cat’s head.
1995 - Present: Abstract and Meaningful
While abstract logos are often rather attractive because of their clean and light structure, they often lack the meaning. Very often, you need an explanation to understand what the design represents and in what way it is connected with the organization it represents. The Washington State Cougars logo is a nice example of a logo that is abstract and at the same time meaningful. On the one hand, it is rather clean, you cannot say there is much clutter. On the other hand, you can easily understand it features the head of the cougar, and this is the way it is connected with the nickname of the university’s teams.
Read also: Get Your Boater Card
The Story Behind the Cougar Head Logo
The Washington State University Cougar-head logo is as distinguishable as its history. In 1936, when Washington State College boasted a real live cougar mascot named Butch, Johnson remembers the sleek cat as having a personality that commanded respect. “Whenever I went by and found him outside, I stopped for a visit,” said Johnson. Needing money for tuition, Johnson worked during the summers as an artist, producing window displays, signs, and illustrations. Having learned the art of lettering in high school, he was able to produce interesting signage around campus. In the summer of 1936, he was hired by sign painter Fred Rounds who was head of the Department of Buildings and Grounds, to produce signage for classrooms and offices. One morning after discussing some jobs, Rounds said to Johnson, “what this place needs is some kind of trademark.” After brainstorming, the two decided that the trademark needed to be pictorial and also include the initials WSC, representing Washington State College. “After a night or two at the drawing board, I came up with an arrangement shaped like a cougar head with an open-mouthed, snarling C,” said Johnson. After a few minutes of discussion, Rounds said, “Let’s show it to the president.” President Holland was on sabbatical at the time, so the two showed the drawing to Dean Herbert Kimbrough, who was acting President.
Revisions and Modernization
In 1959, when the college became a university, Johnson revised the logo at the request of President C. Clement French. In 2000, WSU created a new graphic identity that includes an academic signature with the Cougar-head logo within a crest-an internationally recognized symbol for higher education. After completing his degree in fine arts in 1938, Johnson went on to become advertising director for the Washington Water Power Co. He held the position for 38 years, with time out for military service during World War II. He retired in 1978. Over his life, Johnson, who always said he was “proud to be a Cougar,” received a variety of honors.
Washington State University: A Legacy of Growth and Transformation
Washington State University (WSU, or colloquially Wazzu) is a public land-grant research university in Pullman, Washington, United States. The WSU Pullman campus stands on a hill and is characterized by open spaces and a red brick and basalt material palette-materials originally found on site. The university sits within the rolling topography of the Palouse in rural eastern Washington and remains closely connected to the town and the region. The university also operates campuses across Washington at WSU Spokane, WSU Tri-Cities, and WSU Vancouver, all founded in 1989. In 2012, WSU launched an Internet-based Global Campus, which includes its online degree program, WSU Online. In 2015, WSU expanded to a sixth campus at WSU Everett. These campuses award primarily bachelor's and master's degrees. WSU's athletic teams are called the Cougars and the school colors are crimson and gray. Following the 2024 collapse of the Pac-12 Conference, most of WSU's six men's and nine women's varsity teams compete in the NCAA Division I West Coast Conference. WSU is one of two remaining members of the Pac-12, which will resume full operations in 2026 with the confirmed addition of six new members.
The Morrill Act and the Birth of WSU
In 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Morrill Act of 1862 into law, allowing for the creation of land-grant colleges “to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts …in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes." The Hatch Act of 1887 expanded on the Morrill Act, providing federal funds for the establishment of agriculture experiment stations at land-grant colleges. Shortly after attaining statehood on November 11, 1889, the Washington State Legislature began taking steps to claim a land-grant college, and fewer than five months later on March 28, 1890, passed House Bill 90 for the creation of the Agricultural College, Experiment Station and School of Science of the State of Washington. Governor Elisha P. Ferry signed the bill into law a few days later. Soon after, a second act of legislature expanded the school's educational mission to include general arts and sciences. According to the legislation, the site of the land-grant college was to be determined by a three-member committee appointed by the governor, but it stipulated that the site must be located in the southeast corner of the state. After an exhaustive examination of bidding towns such as Yakima and other towns in the Palouse region, the state's new land-grant college opened to 59 students in Pullman on January 13, 1892, offering three major courses of study: agriculture, engineering, and domestic science. Pullman was possibly selected because of a generous land gift by the city and its railroad connections to Spokane and Portland, Oregon. A five-member Board of Regents was appointed with George W.
Early Leadership and Academic Development
The school started out with a faculty of five, with a student-body largely consisting of children from the surrounding community, who, if they were residents of Washington would have attended tuition-free. Enoch Albert Bryan, appointed July 22, 1893, and serving for 22 years, was the first influential president of WSU and considered by many as the true founder of the university. Bryan previously served as the president of Vincennes University in Indiana and was an alumnus of Indiana University and held a graduate degree from Harvard. When Bryan learned he was nominated for the presidency by a friend in Oregon, he had never even heard of the college. Before Bryan's arrival, the fledgling university suffered through significant organizational instability. Under Bryan's term as president, the curriculum included both a practical and liberal arts component, where chemistry, mathematics as well as history, English literature and two foreign languages were core courses, required for graduation regardless of major. Under Bryan, music and art held importance too, in 1905 he gained the approval of the Board of Regents for a School of Music. During this time, a committee approved the decision to change the school colors of blue and pink to the crimson and gray we see today. Bryan guided the college toward respectability and is arguably the most influential figure in the university's history. The landmark clock tower in the center of campus is his namesake.
Read also: Academics at UW Bothell
Navigating Challenges and Rivalries
As the college approached the end of its first decade of existence, Bryan and others tried to garner the necessary support to change the name of the school, which resulted in the introduction of a bill to change the school name to “Washington State College” in 1899. This and similar efforts in 1901 and 1903 were defeated with strong opposition for attempting to create another state university which would undermine the clout of the University of Washington (UW) in Seattle. Ernest O. Holland succeeded Enoch Bryan as President of the Washington State College in 1915. That same year, a close friend of his whom he shared a room with while studying at Columbia University, Henry Suzzallo, became the President of the University of Washington. Holland's early years as president and friendship with Suzzallo were challenged during his tenure as president. In 1909, the institutional rivalry between WSC and UW worsened when state legislators, the majority of which held seats in western Washington, were dismayed to find a foreign language department, an English Department headed by a Harvard-educated PhD, a school of architecture, and many departments with graduate students, which they felt expanded beyond the college's scope. The legislative committee promptly advised demoting the college to “trade school” status, an idea which Suzzallo supported. Suzzallo penned a letter to Holland promising to make WSC “the greatest school of agriculture in the world” only if Holland agreed to abandon all other disciplines to UW; Suzzallo's proposal specifically sought to shut down WSC's schools of architecture and pharmacy. After years of wrangling, the Washington legislature decided against limiting the academic mission and scope of WSC. The two presidents and their respective institutions continued to have a row over curriculum and state appropriations until Suzzallo was relieved of his position in 1926 due to the influence of Washington governor, Roland H. Hartley. In trying to outdo his former peer at UW, Holland wanted to build a library that rivaled the grandness of the newly built library at UW that bears Suzzallo's name.
Overcoming Hardship and Embracing Innovation
Budgetary woes hit WSC in the Great Depression years starting in the 1930s. The budget, faculty, salaries, and enrollment slumped dramatically. Enrollment didn't reach pre-Depression levels until 1936 and salaries until 1937 in nominal terms. With the start of World War II, the Washington State College was contracted by the War Department to house and train the Army Signal Corps where they were given pre-flight school training and lessons in Japanese language. The college hosted as many as 1,900 military personnel in the vacated dormitories and fraternities. It was during this time in 1944 however, when WSC saw the exciting introduction of the Cougar Gold brand of sharp white cheddar cheese from the campus creamery. The cheese was developed and gets its namesake from dairy bacteriologist Dr. N.S. Golding who was studying molds for cheese production. After the war ended and the passing of the G.I. Bill, the college went from having virtually no men on campus to being inundated with them. By the 1970s, WSU's enrollment quadrupled from its level in the 1940s to 14,000 students with an influx from the Baby Boom Generation. President Glenn Terrell took steps to increase funding for undergraduate and graduate education amid the nationwide recession of the mid-1970s.
Expansion and Modernization
Beginning with the start of Samuel H. Smith’s term as president in 1985, marked a large period of growth for WSU. In 1989, WSU gained branch campuses in Spokane, the Tri-Cities, and Vancouver with established extension offices and research centers in all regions of the state, with facilities in Prosser and Wenatchee. Smith proved to be a consummate fundraiser, with about $760 million raised during his term, thanks in some part to Microsoft co-founder and alumnus Paul Allen. In the 1990s Smith began to clamp down and take action regarding student alcohol abuse and disciplinary issues after some high-profile incidents on campus in an effort to improve the university's image. The efforts seemed to have paid off when WSU lost its rank and was completely excluded from The Princeton Review’s party school list in August 2000. Improving the quality of education was the defining goal of the university under V. Lane Rawlins, who raised admission requirements and sought to improve the academic profile of the school with improved curricula and research facilities. After Rawlins retired in 2006, Elson Floyd succeeded him as president. Under Floyd's leadership, increasing the diversity of the student body and continuing to raise the stature and reach of the university were a focus. In his eight years as president, WSU enrollment figures went up by 17 percent, including a 12.5 percent increase in the number of students of color, the amount of research grants awarded to WSU tripled to $600 million a year, and he led expansions in all of WSU's branch campuses-most notably successfully campaigning for the creation of the public medical school that now bears his name at WSU - Spokane, the Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine. The second public medical school in Washington, and only one of three in the state, is seen as key to the university's organizational mission as a state land-grant university and its ambitions as a research university. Created five years after the passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2015, the medical school's goal is to alleviate a physician shortage in rural and eastern Washington using a community-based approach. The med school is said to be a key component in the university's new research-focused $1.5 billion Drive to 25 campaign under President Kirk Schulz, which seeks to make WSU among the nations top 25 public research universities by 2030.
The Pullman Campus: A Hub of Education and Athletics
The Pullman campus of Washington State University is 620 acres (2.5 km2) and is in the Palouse region. The average elevation of the campus is approximately 2,500 feet (760 m) above sea level, and is seven miles (11 km) west of the Idaho border and Moscow, home of the University of Idaho, also a land-grant and R1 research institution. The Palouse is defined by its unique rolling hills that were created by wind-blown soil, which supports one of the world's most productive dry-land agricultural regions. The main crops are wheat, peas, barley, and lentils. Evenings are often highlighted by a spectacular blue-pink sunset, which the first Board of Regents decided to use as the college's colors (later changed to the current crimson and gray colors). Campus architecture is diverse, but its prevailing image is perhaps best characterized by a handful of red-brick buildings in the older campus core designed in a neo-Georgian or Renaissance Revival mode, many of which were constructed between the world wars. Yet WSU was hardly immune to modernist, "international style" trends of the post-World War II period, and features some notable examples of the type, particularly the Regents Hill dormitory complex, designed by Paul Thiry, on the north side of campus. By the 1990s, the university began to encourage eye-catching designs, including a 1994 addition to the old Holland Library (now called Terrell Library), by the Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Partnership (now ZGF Architects LLP) with a curving sweep of windows and a cone-shaped skylight above its atrium; an amenity-filled recreation center with a massive Jacuzzi and fireplace in 2001; and the Samuel H. Smith Center for Undergraduate Education, or "CUE," named for WSU president Smith, who served from 1985 to 2000. The busiest part of campus is the Glenn Terrell Friendship Mall, referred to as "the mall" by students. This walkway, which prior to the 1970s was a road with parking available along the sides, was named after Terrell, WSU's president from 1967 to 1985. His secretary was known to set meetings ten minutes behind schedule to make up for the time he would spend talking to students along the way. The library complex (Terrell and Holland Libraries), the student union (Compton Union Building), and three academic buildings surround the mall. The football venue, Martin Stadium, named after Governor Clarence D. Martin, also figures prominently on campus. It is situated near the geographical center of the campus with the south grandstands built into the Hill (the Information Technology building is part of the south grandstands), and Terrell Library and the Vogel Plant BioSciences buildings overlooking the west and east ends, respectively. Football has been played here since 1895, first as Soldier Field, later renamed Rogers Field, rebuilt in 1936. After a fire to the main wooden grandstand in 1970, it was replaced with Martin Stadium, which opened 54 years ago in 1972. Even though it is the smallest in the Pac-12, it offers the most seating to students in the conference. After the 2006 season, Martin Stadium went under a massive renovation to expand the seating capacity and offer greater amenities for players and spectators, as well as made improvements to the general facilities such as bathrooms and concession stands. The Cougar Football Project is the proposed renovation of Martin Stadium that consists of two separate projects. The first project, called the Southside Project, would replace the old press box on the south stands with a new structure that includes a new press box, club seats, loge boxes.
Read also: Explore Husky Stadium's past
tags: #washington #state #university #logo #history
