The Story Behind Pitt's Blue Vase

The Pitt Panthers are using a special symbol to rally ahead of a big game.

PITTSBURGH -- The Pitt Panthers are dealing with a starting quarterback change and are hosting a top-15 opponent at Acrisure Stadium this week, but the biggest story surrounding this program has not been about anything happening on the football field. 

Instead, a motivational tool - the blue vase that had occupied the lobby of the practice facility all week - employed by the Pitt coaches, a symbol that had been misinterpreted and misreported by members of the local media (including this outlet) has dominated conversations about this team. Head coach Pat Narduzzi took time to set the record straight about the infamous blue vase on his weekly radio show. 

"It’s our way of saying ‘Are you ready for kickoff?’" Narduzzi said. "It comes down to - and our kids say ‘By Any Means’ … I said ‘Let’s put it out there to remind our guys to find a way to get it done.’ … There’s probably a blue vase in every room in the building. … If there’s some impossible task that needs to get done, … I’ll say to them ‘Blue vase it.’”

The symbol of the blue vase goes back to a 1920's novel, the Go-Getter by Peter Kyne. The story follows a World War I veteran, Bill Peck, who's lost a leg and an arm in the fighting, but gets a job at a lumber company in San Francisco upon returning home.

Some time into this job, after he had met certain productivity quotas, the Peck is asked by his boss, Cappy Ricks, to go buy a blue vase that the boss plans to gift to a friend. Peck is instructed to meet him on a train bound for Santa Barbara to hand off the item.  

The hunt for this vase involves vague directions from the boss, a long search all around San Francisco, hours spent on the phone trying to track down the owner of the store, even longer trying to convince someone to come downtown and sell him the vase, yet more time to gather the money up to buy the expensive glassware and finally convoluted modes of transportation to reach the train, which by that point had left without the employee. 

When Peck gives the vase to Ricks, he reveals that it is an intentionally impossible test he gives to all employees at the company. No one had ever completed it except Peck, who declares simply that when he says he will get the job done, he will. 

The Pitt coaches share this story via an old video with a man giving an abridged version and concluding by saying "Are you ready for kickoff?" with their players twice a year - the night before the season opener and again before the bowl game. There are also blue vases set all around the facility as a constant reminder of this message. They even have worked images of the blue vase into binders full of program rules and themes. All these are reminders for the players to give everything they have to the collective effort.

The purpose of the story is to remind players of the kind of commitment it takes to be great and "get the job done." It celebrates the relentless attitude of a man who was never meant to accomplish what he did but despite the longest of odds, used every ounce of the resources at hand - his own strength and fortitude, as well as the help of friends and others - to get the job done. 

It is a tradition and a message that reaches back to the career of legendary college football coach Jim Tressel's career. He succeeded Narduzzi's father, Bill as head coach at Youngstown State before moving on to Ohio State. Pat Narduzzi used this story during previous stops at Michigan State and Cincinnati and carried it on to Pittsburgh. 

When they won the ACC Championship in 2021, the blue vase stood in the lobby of the practice facility all year. Players have made their own versions of the blue vase video before postseason games, according to Narduzzi. And when the Panthers visited No. 2 Clemson in 2016, the players all got miniature blue vases and carried them around on the trip down before they knocked off the eventual national champions.

Narduzzi himself said the video they show players is "a little corny" and that it might take some kids a while to truly understand the message. But he believes in it and the players do as well. With a tall task awaiting them on Saturday in the unbeaten Louisville Cardinals, Narduzzi and Pitt will hope to pull out another blue vase moment.  

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