The Parma Panthers are an American football

American football

American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...

 team based in Parma

Parma

Parma is a city in the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna famous for its ham, its cheese, its architecture and the fine countryside around it. This is the home of the University of Parma, one of the oldest universities in the world....

, Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

. The team was founded in 1980 by Vic Dasaro, an American veterinary student attending university in Parma. Dasaro created the team from an amalgam of power lifters from a local high school gym, ex-rugby players, other vet students, and a mixed bunch of soccer goalies, track and field athletes, and local kids who had seen football on the occasional tv broadcast and liked the helmet and shoulderpad look.

In 2006, the team reached the Italian Super Bowl for the first time ever. In 2007, the team reached the XXVII Super Bowl, losing against the Bergamo Lions

Bergamo Lions

The Bergamo Lions is an American football team from Bergamo, Italy. They won the Eurobowl in 2000, 2001 and 2002, while losing to the Chrysler Vikings in the finals of 2004 and 2005. In Italy they have been unbeaten since 1998...

.
In 2010 and in 2011 Panthers won the title of italian champion by beating respectively Catania Elephants

Catania Elephants

Catania Elephants are a Professional American Football team in Catania, Italy. They currently play in the Italian Football League. The Elephants reached the IFL Super Bowl Championship game in 2010, but lost to the Parma Panthers.-External links:...

 and Bologna Warriors.

American football teams in Italy are only allowed to have three Americans on their team, which usually are the quarterback, the running back, and the head coach.

In popular culture

Playing for Pizza

Playing for Pizza

Playing for Pizza is a short novel by John Grisham, released on September 25, 2007. The novel is about an itinerant American football player who can no longer get work in the National Football League and whose agent, as a last resort, signs a deal for him to play for the Parma Panthers, in Parma,...

is a novel by John Grisham

John Grisham

John Ray Grisham, Jr. is an American lawyer and author, best known for his popular legal thrillers.John Grisham graduated from Mississippi State University before attending the University of Mississippi School of Law in 1981 and practiced criminal law for about a decade...

about a quarterback who signs for Parma after being blamed for the defeat of the Cleveland Browns in an AFC Championship final.