When Eastern revealed its new logo back in October it received many different reactions but recently has been ranked the second best sports logo in the nation according to sportslogos.net, a website that covers branding and logos across the sports world.

For a logo to be eligible, it had to debut during 2015. There were a total of 150 schools eligible to be ranked in the top 50. The American Hockey League’s Milwaukee Admirals was the winning logo. The Admirals are the affiliate of the Nashville Predators of the NHL.

Six NCAA schools were in the top 50. Howard University was ranked fourth, UNC Wilmington was ranked 11th, Northern Colorado was ranked 21st, Hartford was ranked 24th, Army was ranked 31st and Saint Louis was ranked 42nd.

The logo had the biggest effect on the athletes at Eastern as they now have to wear it on their uniforms. The new logo took some getting used to for the seniors who played with the old logo for the first three years of their career according to a few players.

Eastern women’s soccer team senior Molly Hawkins said it was unlike any other school’s logo and gave a refreshing look to Eastern. She said it would take time to get used to it after playing with the old logo for nearly three and a half years of her college career.

Coach Jacqueline Michalski of the Eastern swim team said she liked the logo.

Strangely enough, and to many people’s surprise, the new logo was unveiled a couple months into the school year. Senior tennis player Robert Skolik said it turned out to be a great logo but wished that Eastern would have revealed the logo before the start of the semester.

Senior volleyball player Stephanie Wallace was another athlete who was indifferent about the new logo. Wallace said it was a lot different from the old logo and that it did not look a lot like a panther to her. She added she would get used to it, though.

While there were many different opinions of the logo, some being good and some being not so good, Eastern still successfully created a new logo according to sportslogos.net.

Being the second best logo, Eastern was able to beat out some teams who play at the professional level. The new Panther logo beat out the Atlanta Hawks and Washington Wizards of the NBA, the Columbus Crew SC of the MLS, and the triple-A affiliate of the Oakland Athletics of the MLB, Nashville Sounds.

The new logo is much different than the old logo as Wallace and Hawkins said, but the debate around whether it was a good change or not has seemed to die down.

When the logo was released The Daily Eastern News did a poll on what students thought of the logo and 464 disapproved, 144 approved and 79 were on the fence.

Sean Hastings can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected]