"Since May, Joe Cooper has been a fan on a mission.

Although he lives in Eagle River, Alaska, working for the Air National Guard, the Carolina Panthers are never far from his mind. It%u2019s not unusual for the Winston-Salem native and his wife Jessica to catch a cross-country flight covering more than 4,600 miles to see their beloved Panthers a few times a year, even it means spending more time traveling than in North Carolina.

When he talks of the Panthers he does so with a great deal of pride.

That%u2019s why he took on the bold mission of convincing Carolina owner/founder Jerry Richardson to replace the NFL %u201Cshield%u201D at midfield of Bank of America Stadium with the Panther logo. Aside from the Jets and Giants, who share a stadium at the Meadowlands, the Panthers are the only other NFL team that doesn%u2019t show off their logo at midfield.

%u201CMr. Richardson made it known that he chose to paint the shield as a way to say thank you to the NFL for our team,%u201D said Cooper, 27. %u201CWe respect that as fans, but we also feel 13 years is long enough.

%u201CAs small of an issue as it is, the impact could be that much greater. You look at some of the greatest teams in the NFL and their logo itself demands a certain amount of respect. How much would it have mattered if Terrell Owens had been standing on the %u2018NFL%u2019 logo instead of the Dallas star, or what would Green Bay be without theirs? Bottom line, it just makes sense. The fans deserve it, and the team deserves it. It%u2019s never been done in Carolina before, so why not now?%u201D

So he went about finding a way to convince Richardson to add the team%u2019s logo to the field.

He contacted newspapers, radio stations and put out word on the internet of his plight.

Initially, he hoped to collect enough money to rent a billboard advertisement in downtown Charlotte, but he refunded it when he came up short on cash. Still, he continued on, gathering petitions first through the website www.carolinahuddle.com and then through one he created www.Fans4TheLogo.com. He even had business cards made up and got some local stores to agree to distribute them in bags with each purchase.

Through it all, Cooper collected more than 1,900 signatures, more than 1,000 of which with written comments supporting his movement.

%u201CI got the idea to start the petition after a fan had mentioned something about the logo on an online forum,%u201D Cooper said. %u201CI thought to myself, %u2018I%u2019ve heard these complaints for several years but nobody has ever done anything to try and change it.%u2019 I figured with it being the off-season there was no better time.%u201D

Recently, he brought the idea to Jon Richardson, who oversees stadium operations. Richardson, like his father, has always been sympathetic and open-minded about the needs of the fans. He listened and discussed the matter with other team officials, including his father.<