Spirit Initiatives Committee
A Longwood Spirit Initiatives Committee was formed in early March, 2011 with a presidential charge to establish a new mascot and school fight song. Longwood University President Patrick Finnegan asked Director of Athletics Troy Austin to chair a committee of faculty, staff, students, and alumni to work on finding a new mascot and creating a school fight song. The goal is for the committee to deliver a new mascot by August for the start of the new school year, while introducing a new fight song later during the 2011 fall semester.
Committee Members
Troy Austin, Director of Athletics
Greg Prouty, Associate Athletics Director for Media Relations
Mike Gillian, Men's Basketball Head Coach
Eric Stoller, Director of Marketing | Intercollegiate Athletics
Dennis Sercombe, Associate Vice President for Marketing & Communications
Nancy Shelton '68, Director of Alumni Relations
Gordon Ring, Professor of Music
Melissa Panzarello, Assistant Professor of Theatre
Stacey Wilkerson, Assistant Director | Office of First Year Experience
Jonnelle Davis, Assistant Director of Operations | Office of Student Affairs
Daphne Norton, Payroll Specialist 1 | Staff Advisory Committee
Zachary Guca, Residence Education Coordinator | Office of Student Affairs
Danielle Brown, Student Government Association Secretary & Sophomore Class Vice President | Longwood Sudent
Tucker Dowdy, Lancer Lunatic | Longwood Student
Be On The Lancer Lookout
The Longwood Spirit Initiative Committee released two sketches to be voted on for the new Longwood Lancers mascot on May 1 at the Late Night Breakfast in the Dorrill Dining Hall. Alumni, Faculty, Staff and Students were emailed on May 2 with instructions on how they could vote online for the mascot, and voting continued until May 9. Over 4,300 votes were received.
Please Note: The mascot will be a costumed individual celebrating Longwood school spirit. There is no intention to change the athletics logo with the Lance and horse graphic. The new mascot will be unveiled at the G.A.M.E. 2.0 on August 21. Questions and comments can be submitted via email to:
spirit@longwood.edu
Update from Director of Athletics Troy Austin | June 7, 2011
Members of the Longwood Community:
Thank you for signing up to receive updates about our mascot creation process. The response to our mascot search far exceeded my expectations – so much so that we had to upgrade our survey software to handle the number of votes that we received! This was just another great reminder of the pride that students, faculty, staff, and alumni take in Longwood University.
After the all of the votes were tallied from the Late Night Breakfast on May 1st and the online survey the following week, we sent the winning sketch to our vendor, Loonie Times Character Productions Inc. Some of Loonie Times’ other clients have included corporations, professional sports organizations, high schools, and universities. If you would like to view a brief video documenting their creation process, one is available at
this link.
Loonie Times has designed some preliminary sketches with costume dimensions and specifications, and the creation of the costume is scheduled to begin shortly. If all goes according to plan, our new mascot will arrive in time to be introduced at New Lancer Days in August.
I’d again like to thank you all for your enthusiasm in this process. It’s an exciting time to be a part of this community. Be sure to keep up with us on LongwoodLancers.com, or on Facebook at Longwood Lancers and Twitter @LongwoodLancers.
Go Lancers!
Troy Austin
Director of Athletics
Update from Director of Athletics Troy Austin | July 12, 2011
Members of the Longwood University:
With most of the attention of our spirit initiative so far being focused on our mascot process, I wanted to share a little bit with you about another aspect of our spirit initiative: the fight song. In addition to having a mascot to engage our crowds at sporting and community events, we also want to have a school fight song that we will be proud to sing often. This fight song will not replace the use of the Alma Mater at official functions; rather, it will be played to encourage spirit and camaraderie at our sporting and social events.
The Spirit Initiatives Committee assigned the task of overseeing the development of a fight song to music professor Dr. Gordon Ring. Dr. Ring has reached out to numerous Longwood music graduates for collaboration on both music and lyrics, and an initial version of the song is scheduled to be completed during the summer. The song will then be refined throughout the first part of the fall semester until a final version is produced. Dr. Ring has extensive composing experience, and we are excited about his involvement with this process. More information on Dr. Ring’s musical credentials can be
found here.
Thank you for your continued interest in Longwood Athletics. We are excited to be able to bring these spirit initiatives to our community. Please be sure to keep up with us on LongwoodLancers.com, or on Facebook at Longwood Lancers and Twitter @LongwoodAD or @LongwoodLancers.
Go Lancers!
Troy Austin
Director of Athletics
