Middlebury Skiing Patch (Panther) — c. 1970s-80s

A vintage Middlebury Skiing patch from Vermont, probably late 1970s or early 80s, featuring the college panther drawn as a long-limbed cat in a racing tuck — grinning, tail up, poles swept back, going considerably faster than the drawing can hold. Tall oval, light blue ground, red merrowed border, MIDDLEBURY arched in navy over the top and SKIING across the bottom.

Middlebury's teams are the Panthers, and at some point in the seventies a person sat down and had to work out what a panther looks like in a tuck. There is no reference for this. Nobody has ever photographed a big cat skiing. The artist simply decided, committed, and sent it to the mill.

Mascot patches survive at a far higher rate than plain ones, and the reason is entirely unsentimental: people cannot throw them away. A shield with a name on it goes in the bin during a house move. A cat in a tuck gets kept, moved three times, and eventually ends up in a box in an attic that somebody's children open forty years later.

That is how this one got here.

Somebody in the art department presumably asked whether a panther skis with its tail out for balance. The answer they arrived at is visible here and it is, frankly, the only defensible choice.

Embroidered on twill, merrowed edge. Photos are the condition report.