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 Ģ������ƵStories      February 19, 2025

By Shane Ryden

A fresh set of eyes finds a new generation of Catamounts. More than 30 years after Paws’ billboard debut, designers at Ģ������Ƶ continue to update the much beloved symbol off U.S. 23.  

Students and locals of Jackson County will notice that in January the eyes grew from their place in the shadows. They’re a deeper shade of Ģ������Ƶgold, and the big cat’s fur is a deeper purple. The predator’s eyes are narrowed in their same iconic, reflective glare, and the university’s name is spelled in white just beneath.   

For those familiar with the area, especially Ģ������Ƶalumni, the eyes mean a great deal. They have watched their families grow and their children follow in their footsteps since 1992.  

One such alumnus and proud proponent of the cat eyes from their beginning is Phil Cauley ‘83, associate vice chancellor for undergraduate enrollment.  

In the early 1990s, a peak period of expansion for the university, Cauley was working with a small team in Ģ������Ƶadmissions. Some of their most important work centered upon improving student outreach and name recognition for the university. 

“We were looking for something that would be an attention-getter,” said Cauley, “We would go to college fairs and a lot of the time, the most established schools would have some type of icon. Obviously, Chapel Hill, the tar heel, Clemson University, the paw. We were looking for something that would be kind of that buzz that we, as we went out - setting up tables and all - could get some identity from and make it fun.” 

Fortunately for Cauley and the rest of his teammates, they didn’t have long to wait.   

In May 1990, Darrell Frizsell, original designer of the cat eyes, was hired on to the Ģ������Ƶgraphics team at 19 by Doug Reed, former director of public information for WCU. As Frizsell tells it, he had been in the office barely a year when inspiration struck.  

Reed was producing a campus promotional video with the admissions team and came to Frizsell looking for ideas. While Reed was talking, Frizsell was struck with a scene: a slinking cat, studying the camera from darkness, prowling the frame, visible one moment and in the next, gone to the shadows. It’s at this point, described Frizsell, that the image we are familiar with took shape.  

“The letters W-C-U come out of the background and come closer to the screen,” said Frizsell. 

“You begin to see the silhouette of the cat creeping up to the Ģ������Ƶfrom behind, until ultimately he gets right behind it and opens his eyes, so you see him peering over the top.” 

The image never found its way to admissions’ video, but Frizsell was driven to put them to paper nonetheless.  

“I was sitting there one day and had a few minutes in between projects,” he said. “It was the early days of computers, and I was still trying to master some of the programs we were using. And so, I thought, I’ll see if I can draw this thing on the computer like I’m seeing in my head, and so that’s exactly what I did. I threw the W-C-U up and the eyes above it, the whiskers and things, and then I printed it off.” 

The black-and-white image lived on Frizsell’s desk for a year, unseen but by those few peers he shared the office with. One fellow designer, Loretta Adams, admired the printout and suggested it be colored. Returning from lunch one afternoon, Frizsell found the cat’s eyes gold and WCU’s initials in purple and white. While Frizsell thought nothing of it at the time, the same could not be said for other staff.  

It was the inspired action of Frizsell’s office manager, Christy McCarley Martin, noticing and admiring the design, that brought the cat eyes to Reed and Cauley’s attention.  

“Christy came in one day and she said, ‘I'm going to a meeting with Mr. Reed. Can I take that with me?’” said Frizsell, “And I said, ‘Yeah, go ahead and let me set it out,’ so I handed it to her. And she left and I didn't think any more of it. She came back an hour or two later, and she walked in and handed it back to me and said, ‘this is a hit.’” 

Reed was in Frizsell’s office before the end of the work day to offer a congratulatory handshake, and to ask how quickly he could have the design ready for T-shirts.  

“It’s funny that it became as popular as it did because I drew it so fast, and I was just trying to get it out of my head in just a couple of minutes,” he said. 

The subtle details Frizsell incorporated in those couple of minutes contributed to the design’s power.  

“If you look closely enough, you realize that the eyes themselves are more the shape of human eyes than they are cat eyes. And I did that on purpose,” said Frizell. “Subconsciously, it’s human eyes looking at you with a cat pupil in them. It’s meant to represent a mirror of you. You can become a catamount, the person, the viewer.” 

At a time when no other major universities had adopted a cat eyes logo with their mascot, Cauley and the rest of admissions saw its potential for Ģ������Ƶand began incorporating it into their outreach materials. 

“We put some in our recruitment literature. We created some stickers, little key chains and little giveaway stuff,” said Cauley, “and we started getting requests like crazy.” 

“In my 40 years here, it was the biggest phenomenon that was grassroots, and it just got a life of its own. It just became a real hot commodity for little kids, for senior citizens and everybody in between.” 

The eyes found recognition wherever they went, admired on a national scale on university training jerseys and helmets and appreciated more locally on themed event apparel. In no time at all, they’d found their way to a billboard off U.S. 23.  

The team had no plans for the sign to reflect until they saw it first being painted. One amongst their group, whom Frizsell could not name with certainty, craned their head up and made the suggestion that it should glow. The gentleman doing the job offered his supply of reflective road tape and in that moment stole all their attention.  

“Doug Reed did not bat an eye,” said Frizsell. “He did not say ‘How much is it going to cost? Can you give me a bid on that?’ He looked at the guys and said, ‘Do it,’ and it wasn’t two weeks later that the sign was up and out there on the interstate. And we went out and looked at it, and that was it. The rest is history.” 

The response was immediate. Students published an article in the student paper announcing their arrival, and the excitement echoed throughout the community. The years to come cemented its place in Catamount culture.  

“As a local and a Catamount grad, I always felt like that sign meant I was home,” said Julie Spiro Donaldson, executive director of the Jackson County Chamber of Commerce. “My children looked for the cat eyes on every trip, and no journey was complete until we saw those eyes.” 

Tim Haskett ’82 ’84 MA, alumnus and member of WCU’s board of trustees, shares a similar memory of the cat eyes with his family and grandchildren.  

“When my children were young, they always took their shoes off on the two-and-a-half-hour trip to visit my parents at their house in Sylva. To me, it was always a touchpoint that I was home when we saw that sign."

Haskett shared that many times during their out of town trips their kids would fall asleep and the approaching billboard was their sign to wake up and get ready to get out of the car.

“Donna, my wife, and I would yell out to our kids, ‘I see the cat eyes, so wake up and get your shoes on,’” Haskett said. “Now when we have the grandkids with us and visit Sylva, we get to yell that same thing to them. Also, my wife and I are sometimes silly and tell each other that even when the grandkids are not with us just for a laugh. So please never take that billboard down because it means that we are ‘home’ to so many Ģ������Ƶalumni.” 

As the university has grown and expanded its messaging, the cat eyes have kept their stare, an unchanging aspect of a campus never finished growing.  

“I’ve seen it transcend generations, decades, and I’ve seen people try to stamp it out, and it’s not extinct. It’s adaptable and it’s survived some periods’ best efforts to kill it,” said Cauley. “And you’re not gonna kill the cat eyes.” 

Two designers have taken on the responsibility of updating the eyes since Frizsell’s departure in 2003: John Balentine, WCU’s senior art director, who illustrated a new set of eyes in 2006, and Brent Baldwin, WCU’s senior graphic designer, who produced this latest design.  

The gravity then and now in presenting changes, described Balentine, is that “we don’t have another piece of art that sits for that many years or is unchanged for that long a period of time.”  

“Every point along the line,” mused Baldwin, “every decision every artist or graphic designer or writer or photographer makes is spreading the message of this place out into the world, distinct to the era, distinct to the person’s vision, distinct to the people around them.” 

For WCU’s design team and the whole of the Catamount community, the task ahead is to create for the future while paying homage to the past. The latest eyes are a promising sign that the spirit of Western lives on as it always has, burning bright in the hills of Jackson County.  

“I hope they enjoy it,” said Baldwin. “I hope they like seeing it. I hope it gives them a nice, little feeling in their heart when they pass by it. And if not, then I can’t wait to see what’s next.”