December 6, 2009

For These Athletes, Art Is a Team Sport

Academy of Art U. strives to become the only arts school in the NCAA

Noah Berger for The Chronicle

A soccer player at the Academy of Art U. heads to practice. The San Francisco institution created its athletics program in part to help artists learn how to collaborate.

By Libby Sander

San Francisco

When Jamie Williams asked students at the Academy of Art University to create a mascot for the college's aspiring athletics program two years ago, the early suggestions were not quite the formidable symbols he had imagined.

He did not want to call his athletes the Artists, the Easels, or the Canvases. And definitely not the Paintbrushes.

"We had to go with something strong," says Mr. Williams, a burly former NFL player and the academy's first athletic director. "They're all