by Nate Gordon ’16

In 1939, The Willistonian conducted a poll to decide Williston’s nickname. Now, almost three-quarters of a century later, The Willistonian will conduct a second poll to vote on the official design of the Williston Wildcat. Since the Wildcat is a common team mascot used by many schools, “we want people from both within the community and outside, to say, ‘hey, that’s the Williston wildcat!’”, says Athletic Director Mark Conroy.

Director of Alumni Relations Jeff Pilgrim ’81 recently found a clip of an article from a 1939 edition of The Willistonian: “After tabulating numerous votes in the Willistonian’s gigantic nickname poll, the name seemingly desired by the greatest number of Willistonians was found to be “Wildcats.” But, says Williston Archivist Rick Teller ’70, “It is not until the late 1940s ‘Wildcats’ are [used] with any consistency.” Until then, other names were used, including the Blue & Golds, Williston’s colors before blue and green.

The 1939 article also says, “an insistent bloc of voters demanded that the hockey team’s handle remain “Blue Devils,” suggesting that Williston’s nickname before Wildcats was Blue Devils. There isn’t any factual information to back this up, however.

Recently, Williston introduced a new school logo and redesigned the school seal. The new school logo consists of a shield with a “W” with an “N” embedded within and the founding date of Williston Academy, 1841. The school’s seal was simplified and has a much cleaner look. For the seal, Williston used Stoltze Design, based in Boston, and Susan Geib of the Written Work Company in New Hampshire.

Until now, whenever Williston used a wildcat logo, it was a different design. Students and faculty would take a design from the Internet or create their own original version. “Williston wants a standardized wildcat so that we have consistency as an institution,” says Director of Student Activities, Matt Spearing.

“Athletics is not planning on using a wildcat on our uniform but it could be used on brochures, schedules, websites, etc.,” says Conroy. A wildcat has never appeared on an athletic uniform at Williston, but there are paw prints on some. Conroy says that the Williston “W” or school seal is preferred.

“Where the wildcat will appear is to be determined by those who wish to use it at Williston,” says Spearing, who says that he hopes to have the new wildcat on the 2013 Willy Gras t-shirts in May.

Another reason for the standardization of the wildcat is that schools have been threatened with lawsuits for using other organizations’ design. Williston has never been directly threatened by another institution, but as Director of Communications Traci Wolfe says, “We didn’t want to ‘borrow’ something and end up in that boat.”

To design the wildcat, Wolfe and the Athletic Department started by looking at wildcat designs online to get a sense of what they were looking for. They came upon the Kansas State University wildcat, which is a more simplified and stylized design. Williston asked a freelance illustrator to create a couple of mock-up designs of wildcats.

These subsequent wildcat designs were not quite what members of the Athletic Department wanted, but gave them ideas for what they would like to see. The wildcat designs from the freelancer were then sent to Stoltze design with input from the Athletic Department. Stoltze came back with three designs that are now the three “finalists.”

Below is a link to a survey of the three wildcat designs, all of which are relatively similar, but still unique. Through the poll, you will decide the wildcat that represents Williston best. Please choose your favorite. If none are suitable, select “other” and write what you would like to see in the wildcat. The voting will be open for just over a month and the winner will be announced around May 15.

http://willistonnorthampton.polldaddy.com/s/wildcatsurvey