The year is 1988.
The Ball State University men's basketball team completes one of the greatest seasons in school athletics history, finishing with a 29-3 overall record, including a dominating 14-2 Mid-American Conference campaign.
The Cardinals advanced to the NCAA Tournament where they notched their first-ever tourney win against the University of Pittsburgh before bowing out to the University of Illinois in the second round.
Back on campus, the school needed to figure out a way to cash in from its national success.
With a 30-year-old athletics logo unable to be registered for profit, the university decided to make a change to the visual representation of an entire athletics department.
Twenty years later, off the heels of the most successful football season in school history, few doubt that Ball State is not regretting that decision to go out with the old, and in with the new.
The "running chicken"
Ball State has only officially had two athletics logos since 1926, when the school mascot officially became known as the Cardinals.
In the late 1950s, former Ball State assistant sports information director and 1992 Ball State Athletics Hall of Fame inductee Norm Harmeyer designed what would later be known to many as the "running chicken" logo, the first for Ball State.
Former Ball State associate sports information director and Cardinals' sports historian John Ginter, a friend of the since-passed Harmeyer, said that by 1989, the school was ready for a change.
"It kind of became a joke, to be perfectly honest," said Ginter, author of the book Baseball at Ball State. "I can understand that just from the standpoint that we had no control over the 'running chicken' as far as registering or copyrighting it or whatever, so we had to get a new one to make money."
$5,000 logo
In 1989, following the success of the men's basketball team a season before, the school conducted a national competition to find a new athletics logo.
Ball State offered $5,000 to the most popular logo, which ended up being won and designed by 1977 Ball State graduate William Villarreal.
According to an article written by the Ball State Athletics Department, Villarreal said he thought his logo displayed, "an attitude of strength, challenge and intelligence."
Ginter, associate sports information director from 1983-1990, said the new logo — depicting a swooping Cardinal head — was well received by the community.
"I think that most people liked it," Ginter said. "Like anything else, something new — and if it's good — it makes for something that works."
20 years of exposure
Almost immediately, Ball State was able to reap the benefits of its new, profitable logo.
Though the men's basketball team of 1989-90 certainly didn't have quite the same win-loss record as the season before, the season will live on in infamy and still has its followers on a daily basis wondering, "What if?"
Considered by many to be the greatest season in Ball State athletics history, the men's basketball team finished 26-7 (13-3 MAC) and advanced to its second straight NCAA Tournament as the No. 12 seed.
Led by first-year coach Dick Hunsaker and an all-star cast that included Ball State legends Chandler Thompson and Paris McCurdy, the Cardinals began the upset parade with a 54-53 win against No. 4 seed Oregon State University in the first round. Ball State upset another No. 4 seed in the University of Louisville, 62-60, in the second round, advancing to the school's first-ever Sweet 16 appearance.
Ball State faced No. 1 seed UNLV in the Sweet 16 — a team that had destroyed its opponents all season. Though the Cardinals lost the game 69-67, it was the closest any team came to defeating the eventual national champion Running Rebels all year.
Then came the 2008 Ball State football season.
Led by one of the most deadly and efficient offenses in the nation — and a future NFL quarterback in Nate Davis — the Cardinals ran the table in the regular season, going 12-0 and claiming a MAC West Division title.
Though Ball State lost its next two games — the MAC Championship game and the GMAC Bowl — the Cardinals played a total of eight nationally televised games, putting its logo and its image on a national stage.
"It's important to have a good logo nationally because I think when people turn on ESPN and they see Scheumann Stadium, they see our center-field logo, they know immediately it's Ball State University," Ball State athletics director Tom Collins said. "I think that's what you want to have — you want to have that kind of name recognition, you want people to be able to associate right with it."
Ball State men's basketball coach Billy Taylor said the recognition of the Ball State athletics logo happens to those who encounter it daily, whether consciously or sub-consciously.
"I think our logo represents who we are," Taylor said. "Usually one of the first representations you see when you're going to the Web site or you go online and check us out or on T.V., our logo is representative of who we are as Ball State University."
Future changes?
Though the Ball State logo metaphorically is a year away from the legal drinking age, most would just prefer it stay right where it is.
Ginter said because there are so many Cardinals' sports teams other than Ball State, such as those in Louisville, St. Louis and Arizona, a redo of the current logo would have to be "out of this world" to be considered effective.
"If you're talking about something Hoosiers, OK, that's something different," Ginter said. "The Boilermakers? Something different ... I don't see a reason for change [for Ball State]."
Freshman Jauwan Scaife, a freshman guard on the Ball State men's basketball team who is two years younger than the current logo, graduated from Muncie Central High School in 2009 and has encountered the Ball State athletics logo all his life.
Scaife tends to agree with Ginter.
"I like it," Scaife said. "I don't think it needs to be changed. It probably could over the years, but I like it the way it is. It looks good."
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