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I am a sucker for grassroots, fan-based petitions like these.
Check it out: Joe Cooper is a diehard Panthers fan who grew up in Winston-Salem, N.C., but now lives in Eagle River, Alaska (driving distance: 4,268 miles, in case you’re wondering) and works for Alaska Air National Guard up there at NORAD.
He grew up a Redskins fan, as many North Carolina folks did before the Panthers arrived in 1995, but he switched his allegiance to the local team once it started up. And though the first season in which he got to really sit down and watch his team play every weekend — 2001 — was the year the team went 1-15, he was undaunted in his support. And he maintained it even after he moved to Alaska in ‘03, the year the Cardiac Cats made it all the way to a couple of missed plays away from a Super Bowl title.
And it is in Alaska that Joe has started his campaign online to get his favorite team, the Panthers, to put the team’s logo at midfield of Bank of America Stadium — something the other 31 teams do with their respective insignias. So far, Joe has nearly 2,000 signatures, and he has the attention of the Panthers.
“The logo has never been on the field (for) the whole existence (of the team), and that’s always been one of those things that the fans have always (complained) about,” Cooper told me recently. “They’ve wondered, asked why. It has been brought up. I don’t know if (owner Jerry) Richardson has kind of shrugged it off or paid no attention to it, but it hasn’t happened.”
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Joe Cooper's Web site
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This offseason, Joe was scanning a Panthers message board when someone else brought up the idea of starting a campaign online to get the logo on the field. He’s not sure what made him spring into action, but Cooper said, “Hell, let’s see what we can do,” and got Fans4TheLogo.com rolling. So far, the response has been mostly good. Both major local papers, the Charlotte Observer and the Rock Hill (S.C.) Herald, gave Cooper and his Web site some attention this spring, and other than a few bad seeds, the fans have responded positively.
“I made the Web site, started the petition, and next thing you know, the interest started coming in. In the first couple of days we were in the hundreds (of signatures), and it kept growing. It caught fire,” he said.
The original intent was to collect some money online and use the donations to rent a billboard in downtown Charlotte. Cooper received some support through the site, and some local Charlotte radio stations helped the effort, but there wasn’t enough to make it happen, so he refunded the money that people had donated. The plan is to keep the campaign going up until the start of training camp, when Cooper plans to shut down the petition drive. He hopes the message will have been delivered clearly to the team by that point, but he doesn’t want to be seen as a nuisance or a troublemaker.
“Realistically, I care about it. It’s really cool. I think it’s a nice way to say to the fans, ‘We appreciate you’ and so on. But I care more about the games.
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How Bank of America Stadium field
might look with Panthers logo added
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“I got an e-mail from (Panthers Stadium LLC president) Jon Richardson. He contacted me through the Web site. And there was a guy who signed the petition who sent me a picture of the field, what it would look like with the logo on it (pictured, at right). I was leery about putting it up on the site at first. I didn’t want to infringe any copyrights. Jon Richardson e-mailed and said they were aware of the petition and thankful for the fans and that they will be putting the Panthers’ logo on the field this year.”
The caveat? The logo wasn’t likely to be on the 50-yard line. Moreover, it was not clear from the Panthers if the logo would be in the endzones, the 25-yard line or elsewhere. Richardson told Cooper that one problem with a big logo on the field is that the logo is black in color and that the heat from the field, especially in early-season games, causes the field to deteriorate a lot faster. And because such logos are usually placed in the middle of the field, Panthers officials have been concerned about the safety of their players on a field that might be damaged.
“We’re working on some possible alternatives,” Panthers director of communications Charlie Dayton told PFW. “One consideration is that the midfield area is horrible to the grass.”
The Panthers, it should be noted, consistently have ranked among the top five in polls conducted by the NFL Players Association rating the field condition of NFL stadiums, as voted by the players.
Cooper saw the e-mail as a small victory, whether or not the ultimate goal is achieved. “I’ll be honest, I was ecstatic,” he said.
Though he’s allegiant to his team, often traveling two or three times a year to see them all the way from Alaska, he laments the fact that a lot of who he thinks are true Panthers fans don’t get to see games in person. “Just to afford a good PSL (personal seat license) is $20,000,” Cooper said. “They were able to fund the stadium that way, but it's the price we had to pay to get a team, and over time more diehard fans will take over the stadium.”
So Cooper will see his project through for another couple of weeks, until the Panthers report to Wofford College in Spartanburg, S.C., on July 25. Cooper knows there’s only so much he can do, several thousand miles away, but overall he’s happy with the attention his campaign has brought about. And whether or not he gets his logo, he’ll still support his team.
“My wife and I still travel back for at least one home game a year,” he said. “I like this team a lot. If I am not at a game, I am getting to the bar here at 6 a.m. just to get a spot to watch. They’re worth it.”
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