The Carolina Panthers have a somewhat short history as they only became a part of the National Football League in 1995. Together with the Jacksonville Jaguars, the Carolina Panthers they serve as the football representatives for Carolina (North and South). The Panthers were a part of the West division of the NFC but in 2002 were moved into the South division which was only logical considering their location. Only 8 years into the National Football League they had an appearance on the 2003 Super Bowl. The mascot of the Panthers is Sir Purr and their manager is Marty Hurney.
The history of the Carolina Panthers begins in the late 80s when it was decided that there should be a National Football League expansion team for the Carolinas. Jerry Richardson where he wanted to build a stadium that could seat over 70 000 people. With a lot of fan support all of the preseason games were sold out in 89',90' and 91'. In 92' discussions about expansion teams began but were delayed because of some disputes within the league. Finally in 93' it was announced that Carolina would get a National Football League team.
In 1995 Dom Capers became the head coach of the Carolina Panthers and they managed to win their first game against a new team, the Jaguars, another new team. Because their future home stadium was still under constructions they played all their games at Clemson University.
The 90s weren’t all great for the Panthers, one of their players Rae Carruth conspired to kill his then girlfriend and was later on convicted for it. This of course was a lot of bad press for the Panthers and to make it worse, they lost their quarterback Kerry Collins because he had alcohol and behavior issues and that's not even the worst of it. Their running back Fred Lane was killed by his wife very soon after being traded from the Indianapolis Colts.
After that the team had a lot of trouble finding a good head coach and suffered in performance again. They regained their game again in 2003, they got into and won the Super Bowl XXXVIII.
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