VIDEO: Packers unveil new logo
Published 7:55 am Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Austin High School unveiled a new logo and solidified the school’s nickname Monday night, ensuring all Austin Public School teams will officially be known as the Packers.
VIDEO: Click here to see how the school board unveiled the new logo Monday evening
The new logo, of a cartoon male wearing an apron, was designed by Mark Thompson, a 1972 Austin High School graduate. Thompson also designed the first logo for the Minnesota Timberwolves basketball team in 1987, according to Gordy Harder, one of the members of the Activities Advisory Committee that held a community-wide submission for an updated logo.
Harder said he asked Thompson to design a logo for Austin area sports teams back in the 80s’, where he told Thompson to think up something as, “nobody knows what a Packer looks like.”
Austin High School Principal Bradley Bergstrom said two versions will be designed to reflect the gender of the team it’s representing. While the male logo is finalized, committee members are finalizing the female version. Bergstrom said both versions can be flexibly designed, moving arms and facial expressions around depending on the team and activity. Both versions will also use the agreed-upon A font that has been featured on letterman’s jackets for as long as anyone can remember, thus becoming the official symbol of Austin High School.
Austin High School officially adopted its nickname as the Packers on Monday as well. Before now, the high school’s official nickname was the Scarlets, according to Dean Bishop, one of the committee members who presented Monday night.
During the 1940s, Austin was home to a semi-professional baseball team called the Austin Packers. At some time during the 40s’, a local sports writer referred to high school sports teams as the Little Packers. These names were used interchangeably, according to Bishop.
In the 1947 high school yearbook, high school students referred to themselves during the first half of the year as the Scarlets and the second half of the year as the Packers. From then on, the Packers nickname stuck more and more, completely overtaking the Scarlet nickname by 1954.
“We’ve been the Packers ever since,” Bishop said.
