 Portland Pirates' head coach Barry Trotz was named the franchise's first head coach on August 6.On September 25, 1997, Leipold and team president Jack Diller held a press conference where they unveiled the franchise's new logo, a saber-toothed cat ("Smilodon floridanus").The logo was a reference to a partial "Smilodon" skeleton found beneath downtown Nashville in 1971 during construction of the First American National Bank building, now the UBS Tower.