Campaign includes designing replacement for Victor the Viking
Will Hoogendyk IV, Campus Carrier sports editor
First announced in May of 2023, the 3-phase rebranding project surrounding Viking Athletics has picked up steam this fall. The application of the new Viking head logo to athletic apparel, merchandise and soon to be uniforms has allowed for the project to move into its second phase. With this phase comes a new identity for the athletic program and opportunities to further unite the student body when it comes to sports.
When Berry’s old Viking head first went away, so did another symbol of the athletic department that students and faculty had come to love: Victor the Viking. The mascot that represented Berry at athletic and community events as a symbol of Berry’s values was going away along with the Viking head. However, a new mascot is in the works as part of phase 2 of the athletic department rebrand.
Athletic Director Angel Mason is excited to announce that a new mascot will be coming to Berry within the next year.
“As far as having a person that lives in a costume, we are prepared to have that next year now that we have a finalized new logo,” Mason said. “We will work with the company to create something that is more in line with the [new viking head].”
Preparations have already begun to start creating a new mascot costume that will better embody the new logo and spirit of the athletic program. Creating a new mascot has been apart of phase two of the athletic rebranding campaign since the plan’s inception and now that it is here, Mason and her team are exploring the possibilites of what the uniform might look like.
“One of the things that we are considering is for you to be able to see the face of the person,” Mason said.
Having a helmet would be a shift from Victor, whose head was completely enclosed. No final decisions have been made yet as Mason and her team are still refining potential ideas, but once they have some concepts, they will present them to different committees around campus to receive feedback on how well the design unifies the spirit of Berry’s athletic program.
Mason noted how successful this approach was when using it with the new Viking head and how she wants to continue receiving input from those around campus before making any final decisions.
“We would want to get some of that same [input] because the mascot will be part of the spirit and we want the spirit of it to still live on,” Mason said.
During the past few years while the athletic program has undergone this rebrand starting with the unification of the Berry ‘B’ and then the creation of the new Viking head, a mascot has been one of the missing pieces in the search for this unification. Mason is ready for Berry to have a mascot again for what it can mean to the students, staff, faculty and alumni who care so much about the school.
“It’s another symbolism of the spirit of who we are and what we do in our togetherness,” Mason said. “It’s important to have that back, [because] it provides like a visual to it.”
In the past, select students have been able to wear the Victor the Viking costume as part of their LifeWorks job and Mason hopes to continue this trend heading into next fall.
“It always comes down to what students we have and what interest we have,” Mason said. “The mascot costume has always been run two ways; students actually audition as part of their student work job to be the mascot [or] sometimes cheer would hold auditions for the mascot, because the mascot sometimes takes part in parades and things like that.”
In her five years as Director of Athletics, Mason has never had more than three people work in the mascot costume, but she hopes to have more come next year. The increased number of Pack the House athletic events will call for more opportunities for the new mascot to make an appearance in its inaugural year. The new mascot will also make appearances in Rome as a representative of Berry and their athletic program. In past years, Victor had gone with the cheer team to take part in parades while handing out stickers and other Viking apparel to young kids and fans of Berry College
As far as what needed to happen before Mason and her team could get started on this process was the progression of phase one, where the new viking logo would be instituted on athletic team, apparel and uniforms. President Stephen Briggs commented on the third phase of the athletic rebrand which will continue to update the campus with the new logo.
“Whenever we go to refinish the new courts, we will refinish it with the new logo and when we redo the turf on the athletic field,” Briggs said. “We will do it as a cycle of things, it will be an incremental change.”
After more than 25 years as the primary logo of athletics, the old viking head was retired in 2023 and replaced a year later by an updated and upgraded logo that stays more consistent with the design aesthetic of current colleges and universitites around the nation.