Namely, investigating Pete the Panther’s history on campus initially led me to believe that the mascot had been stolen.
Perhaps “stolen” is too harsh of a term, but there is an underlying notion that Chapman University (at the time, California Christian College) took inspiration from Orange Union High School (now Orange High School) for their mascot. There is some credibility to this, as both schools continue to have panther mascots, dating back to the early 1900s-1920s.
Yet further research with Chapman University’s Frank Mt. Pleasant Library of Special Collections and Archives revealed that the Panther mascots seemingly originated independently from one another. Without widely disseminated, concrete histories of these mascots from the time, word of mouth has produced a mythological and folkloric tale of two panthers.
Before he was Pete, the panther was an abandoned paper-machié prop from an unknown 1925 silent movie set. The prop was rescued by a student and brought to California Christian College, where the community soon embraced the mascot.
“Pete embodies what we are at Chapman, which is a welcome and great place,” said Aiken. “Panthers are a very common mascot, so, how do you differentiate? How do you stand out? I think Pete gives us that…Pete’s an original.”
Following an intense flood in 1934, the papier-maché panther was damaged beyond repair. Yet, as the panther prop’s decade on campus established itself with this welcoming energy, the panther’s paw prints were already too deep to wash away in a flood.
Despite losing the original prop, the panther iconography remained present in the university’s student culture through yearbooks, art, and even this very paper, initially titled “The Panther’s Meow,” a name which Orange Union High’s student newspaper coincidentally also shared.
Yet, the mascot wasn’t formalized until the 1990s when a panther costume began appearing in the stands at sporting events. In the 2000s, the alumni association donated an official mascot costume, finally naming it “Pete” after athletic hall of fame inductee Julian “Pete” Peterson.
“It’s not just like they just named him Pete because of the alliteration. He’s named after somebody genuinely deserving of that and kind of iconic in his own right,” said Aiken. “I always want people to know who Pete was named after so that it keeps Julian alive in that regard.”