News about the winner dropped on Friday at 2:30 p.m. The students had voted and the next Algonquin High School mascot will be (cue majestic trumpets): The Titans.
“We are … Titans!” principal Sean Bevan announced in a YouTube video punctuated by a rumble of thunder.
The momentousness of the announcement seemed appropriate for an occasion that has been discussed and debated in the Northborough-Southborough regional school district off-and-on for decades. The yearlong process to replace the Tomahawks involved a student-led committee and culminated in a vote on several proposals for a new name. Those finalists included the Algonquin Eagles, the Algonquin Falcons and even the seasonally intimidating Algonquin Nor’Easters.
Algonquin is the latest in a wave of schools across the state and nation that have made changes to racist school mascots or that are under heightened pressure to do so. Petitions have circulated widely on social media to make name changes, galvanized in part by the Black Lives Matter movement and conversations about racial justice. The Barnstable School Committee voted in September 2020 to retire its Red Raiders mascot and logo. They're now the Red Hawks. The Nashoba Regional School Committee voted to retire the Chieftains logo, in favor of a new mascot, the Wolves. Braintree’s Wamps and Winchester’s Sachems have also come into question, while in Agawam the city council voted unanimously to keep its school nickname, the Brownies, and its logo — a caricature of a Native American.
Algonquin Regional High School is a Central Massachusetts school home to about 1,400 students from the suburban towns of Northborough and Southborough. Just a tiny fraction of students at the school identify as Native American; more than 70 percent of its students are white, followed by 13 percent Asian, 8 percent Hispanic and 2 percent African American.
In the summer of 2020, just months after George Floyd was killed by police in Minnesota, a student group at the high school circulated a Change.org petition calling for a change to the name of the school and the tomahawk mascot. It currently has more than 5,400 signatures.
“The Algonquin name in conjunction with the Tomahawk mascot — which is an ax-like weapon — perpetuate racist stereotypes, classifying Natives as violent and barbaric,” the petition said. “Since Algonquin Regional High School’s conception in 1959, racist attire, chants and behavior have been commonplace — disguised as school pride and excused as an attempt to honor Native people. This racism is unacceptable.”
It ultimately resulted in a unanimous vote by the school committee to retire the Tomahawk mascot, although not the name of the school. That decision was based on several factors, including a longstanding request for a name change from the Nipmuc Nation tribe.
Efforts by GBH News to reach the Nipmuc Nation’s tribal council on Friday were unsuccessful.
Local leaders also created a Renaming Study Group that would recommend to the superintendent and school committee new mascot names and allow students at the high school to vote on the winner.
The voting opened last month, when five teams of students pitched mascot ideas on YouTube, outlining the benefits of each. Some students worked on the project as part of a Social Media and Marketing class or a Sports Entertainment and Marketing course. Student were also encouraged to follow the process on the school's Instagram account.
The school did not announce a final tally in the voting. But the announcement was made in a preproduced video offering sweeping aerial footage of the campus, students vignettes and scenes from sporting events and theater productions. Students touted the Titans as symbols of human strength and intellect. There's also no other team named Titan in the state, they said.
Students “helped us reshape our mascot’s image around our school’s values, which include strength, excellence and achievement,” principal Bevan said. “But above all, they're designed to achieve a sense of unity.”
In Greek mythology, Titans are the children of the Uranus and Gaia, the gods of heaven and earth, as well as their descendants.
“I'm on the robotics team, and that's sort of like sports in the way that we use mascots to identify us,” one student said in the video. “I think once the school has its own mascot, it'll help connect everyone.”
“It’s a new era for our sports teams,” said another student. The new name, he said, will only make the school's fan base bigger and stronger.
GBH Intern Olivia Marble contributed to this story.
