Chicago had its cows. Now, we have our panthers.
Taking a cue from the Windy City’s memorable public exhibit of colorful, life-sized fiberglass bovines, Florida Panthers President Bill Zito and his wife, Julie, are working to make South Florida a showcase for artful statues of his team’s sleek mascot.
Their inspiration, however, transcends the purely artistic. Their Panther on the Prowl campaign is taking a big swipe at cancer, leveraging the region’s pride in its two-time defending Stanley Cup champions to raise a million dollars for the American Cancer Society.
“This is a real labor of love, hopefully bringing people together to fight this terrible disease, but also to enjoy this process,” Zito says. “It’s a humbling process and well worth it.”
That process invites local businesses or individual donors to acquire their life-sized panther sculptures with a charitable donation to ACS to support cancer research and patient services. The fiberglass sculptures are intended to be displayed in workplaces, restaurants, boardrooms, homes and other key locations, serving as symbols of community solidarity with people facing the disease as well as with the ACS’s overall mission.
“Our goal is to sell 200 of them to raise a million bucks for the American Cancer Society,” says Zito, who is the Panthers’ general manager as well as its president of hockey operations. “They only weigh like 25 pounds. The idea is that somebody could buy a panther for 5,000 bucks and decorate it and personalize it. If you needed assistance, we would find artists who would be willing to donate their time and design and prepare your panther for you. We have an artist council that’s pretty impressive.”
Among those involved is celebrated artist Romero Britto. “I reached out to Britto and he said, ‘Yeah, I’ll do it,’” Zito says. “And then he said why don’t you auction mine? And that was a great idea. So we thought we would also have some celebrities design panthers and we would auction them as well.”
The plan is to sell the panthers until the special unveiling at Panthers on the Prowl Night as part of the NHL’s Hockey Fights Cancer Night on Oct. 25 at Amerant Bank Arena. “We want to display all the Panthers that night. And then we’ll begin or announce the auction. We’ll close it on Jan. 2.”
Asked if the team or its players are involved in some other way, Zito becomes coy. “Oh, I’m keeping that close to the vest. Let’s just say there’s still some surprises.”
Beyond the artists, the campaign has attracted other well-known personalities, such as NFL players Nick and Joey Bosa and Michael Bublé. The singer gave his props via a social media video: “Panthers on the Prowl is a creative and really cool and uplifting way to demonstrate and show our support to those that are suffering and keeping this fight going.”
Like the Canadian crooner, Zito’s family has also been affected by the disease. He lost his sister and mother to cancer, and wife Julie is a breast cancer survivor. The Panthers on the Prowl campaign was actually her idea, he says.
It started when a friend sent the couple a life-sized panther statue. Zito says it was like, “‘Hey, what do you think?’ In the course of just day-to-day, people will say, ‘Hey, have a little panther, throw that on your desk, put that in your room.’ I probably have 25 panthers.” So Zito added a couple of his friend’s statues to his collection and put them in his backyard.
The Zitos had been asked by the American Cancer Society to chair its annual campaign this year. “Usually those types of endeavors are a party or a gala,” Zito says. But his wife is from Chicago and the couple lived there during the city’s Cows on Parade public exhibition in the late ’90s.
“So Julie had the idea, well, why don’t we take inspiration from that and have a Panthers on the Prowl, where families, businesses, individuals, whoever wants to buy a panther and help the cause can personalize their own? We reached out to the person who sent me the panther and asked if we could order multiple panthers for this campaign. And that was the genesis of the enterprise.”
Over 100 of the panthers have already been sold — “We’re going to sell them all,” Zito says — and some of them have already been sighted prowling around town.
“We’re encouraging individuals, once you’re done with yours, go ahead and display it. There’s going to be a lot of really cool ones in some pretty cool places.”
One of those places is Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital, which partnered with renowned pop artist Jozza to create a panther sculpture with a special significance. It was painted with the help of the hospital’s young patients, who are regularly encouraged to express their feelings through therapeutic play, art and creativity.
“These tools are especially important when a child is under stress dealing with a diagnosis like cancer,” says Caitlin Stella, the hospital’s CEO. A regular beneficiary of the hockey franchise’s support, the hospital and its young patients took advantage of the panther initiative to highlight the unique journey of children with cancer.
“Our JDCH Panther is a beautiful expression of the symbols of childhood, like candy, Legos, and stickers, as well as the bravery, strength, and courage that it takes to face a cancer diagnosis as a child,” Stella says. “We also added colored ribbons representing the common types of childhood cancers that our little warriors face.”
A particularly poignant decorative element hangs around the panther’s neck — the hospital’s “Chemo Bell.” “When a child completes chemotherapy,” Stella explains, “our tradition is for the child and their entire support system — family, siblings, friends, classmates — to gather and ring the bell to celebrate the end of chemotherapy.”
To donate and secure a panther statue, visit cancer.org/panthersontheprowl. Donors are encouraged to share their finished panther at #panthersontheprowl and follow @PanthersOTProwl on X and Instagram.
