... in 1980!
It's all in a name ...
A live raccoon named Rocky was originally chosen as the mascot for the 1980 Winter Games—but he died. So the Lake Placid organizing committee turned to graphic designer Donald Moss. A freelancer whose illustrations had appeared in Sports Illustrated, Moss studied at the Pratt Institute for Design after getting out of the Marines and later claimed to have created ABC’s logo. (“I never did get credit for that,” he told the New York Times in 1979.)
Moss and his son also designed the logo for the U.S. Ski Team and 11 stamps for the U.S. Postal Service. He agreed that a raccoon was a natural choice for a mascot for the Lake Placid Games. “The mask across its eyes makes it very similar to the mask and goggles and caps worn by Olympic skiers,” Moss said. “And of course the raccoon looks cuddly, a kind of message you want to impart.” Moss’s raccoon, Roni, was named after Lake Placid’s Adirondack Mountains.
Info from Mental Floss
http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/47533
1 comment:
... and I used to have a pair of cross-country ski boots called Lake Placid!! ;-) (Hm.. long before the games, mind you.)
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