As anticipated, the Unionville High School Indian mascot is no more. The school board Monday night voted unanimously to retire the logo and the nickname. A mascot selection panel of students, staff, alumni, and the community will be established to be to come up with a new mascot to be announced in 2021.
It was also announced during the Aug. 24 meeting that there would be no regular fall sports this year.
Patrick Crater, supervisor of athletics at UHS, made the announcement regarding the cancelation of sports, saying the district opted to follow the guidelines of Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration and the Chester County Health Department to have no interscholastic sports before the end of the year. There will, however, be voluntary intra-squad activities, during which the athletes and coaches will observe the health and safety plan the School Board approved on Aug. 3.
Superintendent of Schools John Sanville said that since the district is following the Health Department’s recommendation to open schools with only online instruction, it should follow the department’s guidelines on athletics as well.
The decision to retire the mascot has been long anticipated. The nickname “Indians” was dropped, and the original logo of a stylized Indian head in a full feathered headdress was removed several years ago, replaced with a capital “U” and a feather.
The use of the Indian as mascot and logo was initially a reference to the Lenape Tribe. However, that has since been deemed inappropriate as racist and insulting to the Lenape people.
Crater made a presentation to the board last week saying he had spoken with several Lenape leaders, including Chief Robert Redhawk Ruth, leader of the Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania, and Dennis Coker, the Lenape leader in Delaware. Both of whom, Crater said, had the same message: “We are not a mascot.”
During Crater’s presentation, he said the district would honor the Lenape by incorporating its history and culture into the curriculum and incorporating native gardens on campus.
Older sports uniforms and equipment with the old logo will be replaced and the gym floor will be re-sanded.
He added that the use of the Lenape as fighters and warriors was not fitting and did not reflect the people’s nature. While they would defend themselves if necessary, Crater said he learned that the Lenape were known as negotiators and peacekeepers who worked to resolve conflict.
Crater also told the Wawa story that Ruth related to him. Wawa is the Lenape word for wild geese.
“Fly high and free and be in be in balance with the world around us,” Crater said. The flock flies faster, higher as a group with each member doing its part. Each bird’s flapping makes it easier for the ones behind it. In the V formation, the flock has a 71 percent greater flying range than a single bird.
“The lesson here is that people who share a common direction and sense of community can get where they’re going quicker and easier because they’re traveling on the strength of one another,” he said.
The lead goose rotates back into formation when tired and another takes the point. The lesson, he said is that “It pays to take turns doing the hard tasks.”
If one bird gets sick or is shot, two others follow it to the ground and stay with it until it’s able to fly again.
“If we have as much sense as the geese, we, too, will stay together in difficult times, as well as when we are strong,” Crater said in his virtual presentation. “I hope we will take this wisdom from the Lenape.”
Crater endorsed the administration’s decision to remove the Indian as the district’s mascot. The Lenape “are not to be considered relics or figments of history used for Halloween costumes or mascots. They are people with a rich culture, which should be honored and respected. They are people who are here today, living in a contemporary culture, brimming with the beauty and the pain of being indigenous.”
About Rich Schwartzman
Rich Schwartzman has been reporting on events in the greater Chadds Ford area since September 2001 when he became the founding editor of The Chadds Ford Post. In April 2009 he became managing editor of ChaddsFordLive. He is also an award-winning photographer.
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