October 1, 2024 • 36 mins
If you’re going to create a new mascot, you’ve gotta talk to the experts. In this episode, Akilah speaks with the creators of Benny the Bull, the Chicago Bulls’ mascot, and Gritty, the Philadelphia Flyers mascot, about how to successfully bring a new mascot to life.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
My own black of dollar has gone on overlanding Rentro.
I don't know I.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Ninth Planet Audio cat com We're overlanding, You're Nolan.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
Over We're halfway through our quest to change the Boone
County Rebels to the Boone County Biscuits or whatever, really
anything that isn't rooted in the Confederacy. We've talked with historians,
we've talked with designers, we've talked with people who want
to make real change in the Florence, Kentucky community. But
there's one group of people we haven't heard from.
Speaker 4 (00:33):
Like almost average school has some type of cat.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
If you can't tell from my nervous laughter, I'm talking
to real life high school students in Florence, Kentucky about
their mascots. I got to sit down with a few students,
not from Boone County, but from nearby Connor High School,
mostly because their moms made them. Connor is home of
the Cougars. There are, as noted, a lot of big
cats in the area. But I wanted to know what
they thought the role of a mask it was, and
(01:01):
if you could change the mascots, what would you change
them to.
Speaker 4 (01:04):
I don't really know what I would change it to,
but definitely something that represents school as a whole, but
also something that like encourages people to be kind of funny.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Like some of the mascots just stand there.
Speaker 5 (01:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (01:18):
Yeah, it should be able to adit.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
They're not like engaging.
Speaker 6 (01:21):
It's kind of like a boring concert.
Speaker 4 (01:22):
Most people at our school do like it.
Speaker 5 (01:25):
Yeah. It gives people like like a base to say
that they went to that school. They don't just say, oh, yeah,
I was a part of that Connor High.
Speaker 4 (01:33):
School basketball team.
Speaker 5 (01:34):
It makes it sound more important.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
I guess I was like appreciated.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
Yeah, how important is it for you to have like
a physical mascot like in the school or like at
the games and stuff.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
I feel like it gets us more involved, like with
the school a little bit.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
It just makes us feel like more into it. Yeah,
I feel like we're more a part of it.
Speaker 5 (01:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:56):
I feel like the mascot kind of represents me in
a sense, like I'm not actually the audience.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
Yeah, they get it, you get it. A mascot isn't
just a silly costume. It's a big deal for school spirit.
And here's the thing it cuts both ways. A bad
mascot can make you feel like an outsider, like you'll
never quite belong. But a good mascot it's something you
can rally around, something you can high five or even hug.
(02:24):
A good mascot makes all the difference. And today we're
going to learn what makes them work from some of
the people who have created the most memorable mascots of
all time.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
I was a leady rebel, like, what does that even need?
Speaker 6 (02:37):
The Boon County Rebels will stay the Boone County Rebels,
but the image ofts.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Right here in black and white and friends bigger than
a flag or mascot.
Speaker 5 (02:46):
Anytime you're trying to mess with tradition, you get to
be ready for serious.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Backgrounds from Ninth Planet Audio. I'm Akila Hughes and this
is Rebel Spirit, Episode five Mascots, and.
Speaker 7 (03:07):
I don't want to rain on your biscuit parade again.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
This is Jay Becker from BLDG in Covington, Kentucky.
Speaker 7 (03:15):
I had my fortieth three union last weekend, and I
said to somebody, what if the name of our high
school team had been the Biscuits. They're like, I wouldn't
have come to this, It was like, or I probably
wouldn't have gone to that school. Wow, because high schools
are pride points for young people. This is why we
have to change it.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Okay, so Jay hates the Biscuits, I get it, but
he knows that the rebels have to change. So while
he and his team at BLDG gives some thought to
how to help us make change, I wanted to understand
just how out there some mascot names get.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Baseball goes back to the eighteen hundreds, and they've got
some crazy names, like the food Sufferers. It's like the
salary pickers and the fruit pickers.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
And this enthusiastic voice belongs to Terry Burning, author of
the website mascot dB dot com, a free searchable database
of team names and mascots.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
All that's fascinating gets data to me and like, let's
try to get this all into like this big thing
that everybody can look at. Started with high school just
you know, wanting to get that information on retired high
school mascots, but it definitely blossomed. It's a hobby for me.
I don't make any money from this really, just enough
really from advertising to support the site.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
And of course the big question for Terry.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
I found like two hundred and fifty two instances of
high schools throughout the ages that have used rebels as
their mascot, And out of those two hundred and fifty two,
I found that one hundred and fifty two are still active. Now.
I just I went especially throughout the Old South, and
I really updated did some research and found which of
(04:47):
those have changed. I didn't focus so much on all
the states because I didn't have the time to do that,
so that one hundred fifty might be a little bit
lower than that. But I did find like a good
dozen throughout the last especially ten years that have changed
from rebels to things such as the Huskies, the Hawks,
(05:08):
Red Hawks, Wolves, or wolf Pack. A couple did the Titans.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
What a relief, So it can happen. Schools can really change,
and they changed to some expected choices big cats, wild animals, etc.
I doubt any have changed to the Biscuits, right.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
There's actually a famous minor league team, the Montgomery Biscuits.
Shout out to them. They're actually one of the most
popular minor league teams. They do very well with merchandising,
so you might be onto something there, like the Montgomery
Biscuits used to be something else.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
Guess what the Montgomery Biscuits were before they were the Biscuits,
the Rebels. Montgomery was represented in the Southern League by
a team called the Rebels in the late sixties through
nineteen eighty. Then they had no team until the Biscuits
became Montgomery's first Major League Baseball affiliated team in two
thousand and four. The owners selected the team's nickname from
(05:58):
over four thousand entries and name the team contest. The
official team colors are butter and blue. Their mascots are
Monty and anthropomorphized buttermilk biscuit, and on field they have
big mo, an orange ant eater that loves biscuits hard.
Same speaking of large, giant orange mascots.
Speaker 5 (06:19):
You bring kids to the game and they could care
less about what's going on, but like they come home
with a Gritty T shirt and they saw Gritty on
the screen or they got to meet him, and then
like you have that connection to the team that when
you grow up, it just never leaves.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
Brian Allen is an illustrator and creative director living in
the bellefont area of Pennsylvania. He's worked with major brands
and bands like Metallica, Hulk Hogan, and Activision. But his
most famous creation is the Philadelphia Flyers mascot Gritty.
Speaker 5 (06:52):
I don't know many names of mascots, you know. I mean,
I know the fanatic, I know Gritty. There's something about
his name where people who don't even follow hockeys still
know him and it just clicks because he is a
gritty looking creature. The story of Gritty that they made
(07:16):
up was that he was born in the basement of
the stadium or something like that, and like he would eat,
he would eat hot dogs that fell through the bleachers,
and that's how he survived for years until for some
reason he came up.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Gritty, for the uninitiated, is the NHL mascot for the
Philadelphia Flyers. He's a neon orange monster with a cascading
orange beard and cookie monster style googly eyes that look
more deranged serial killer than Sesame Street. While most mascots
are there for fun and to take pictures with kids,
Gritty has more of an edge, very much in line
with the culture of Philly, a city whose sports fans
(07:51):
have a well deserved rowdy reputation. He deliberately shoots T
shirts at fans, slips on the ice a little too often,
and has cultivated an unapologies deetically assertive social media presence,
but Gritty almost didn't exist.
Speaker 5 (08:04):
I had someone from the Flyers marketing team reach out
to me just a few months actually, before they were
going to release Gritty. At the time, I didn't know
that the Flyers were even creating a mascot. It was secret.
They had been working with another company before they worked
with me. They weren't liking what they were getting because
(08:27):
everything they were getting was kind of friendlier and nicer.
And they found some artwork of mine that I had
done for another team or I think it was a commercial,
and I had a tiger that was kind of had
an attitude to it, and they really liked that because
when they hired me, they told me that they wanted
(08:48):
Gritty to be somebody that you wanted a high five,
but not hug So he had to have a little
bit of toughness. And I keep almost saying gritty because
that's how we described it a first. It's like we
wanted him to have a little grit and be gritty.
But that was before they picked his name.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
There wasn't a lot of time left, and so Brian
did what Brian does best. He drew a lot.
Speaker 5 (09:15):
I drew all different types of monsters, but I also
drew weird things like we played with the idea of
a bat at first, or I drew like an old pilot,
like an old Barren pilot, just trying to think of
anything that connected with the Flyers. There was a bulldog,
(09:36):
there was like a tough like hockey goon guy. But
the ones that really stuck were the monsters, the just
sort of weird amorphous creatures that you had, no you
didn't know what gender they were, you didn't know what
species they were. Got one actually that looked pretty similar
(09:56):
to what Gritty looks like now from that first batch.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
You know, perfection when you see it right, well almost.
Speaker 5 (10:03):
He had wings at one point, like so then you
put wings on him and you start thinking like are
they feathered wings? Are they insect wings? Then then we
decided ings wings were really dumb and we took them off.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
Luckily, Brian Drew and re drew working with the art
director of The Flyers until finally Gritty was Gritty. They
eventually ended up with a three D turnaround drawing where
you can see a front, side and back view that
Brian handed off to the costume company to sculpt it
into life. Brian saw Gritty at the same time we
all did, when he skated out on the ice for
the first time. And this moment, the moment that Gritty
(10:40):
was first introduced to the world, was why I wanted
to talk with Brian, because well, everyone loves Gritty.
Speaker 5 (10:46):
Now.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
When he was first introduced, well, all.
Speaker 7 (10:49):
The Philadelphia Flyers have it in mascot. Fans are saying, what.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
Uh that's seven foot.
Speaker 7 (10:54):
Tall Gritty Britty unveiled today in front of a group
of kids probably scot for life.
Speaker 8 (11:00):
Yeah, those kids should be scorned for life.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
Gritzy is fucking horrific.
Speaker 8 (11:05):
The Philadelphia Flyers are being mocked online for their new
team mascot, which is a seven foot tall, fuzzy creature
named Gritty with a long orange beard, googly eyes, and
I assume a dining bag of mostly stems. And everyone's saying,
it's hard to tell exactly.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
What Gritty is supposed to be.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Is he a muppet?
Speaker 5 (11:26):
Is he a yetti?
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Is he some kind of bigfoot?
Speaker 8 (11:29):
Nobody has any idea.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Yes, listener, it's hard to remember now, but when Gritty
was first introduced, he was mocked mercilessly, and Brian was
there watching it all unfold in front of him.
Speaker 5 (11:43):
I always get nervous whenever something big like this is revealed.
But I thought it would just be local, so I
thought the only people who would care would be people
from Pennsylvania. So it certainly didn't expect it to be
on like John Oliver Show. And you know, Conan, this
is an interesting fact.
Speaker 8 (12:04):
Gritty was actually the first mascot ever based on the
crayon drawings of a five year old who saw his
parents murdered.
Speaker 5 (12:12):
We had no idea how big it would get, and
that is in a large part due to the excellent
work of the marketing team at the Flyers. They really
did an excellent job of just rolling with the criticism
and the reaction and having fun with it and like
(12:34):
answering back in a way that they didn't apologize for it.
Speaker 8 (12:38):
Basically by the Pittsburgh Penguins tweeting lol okay, to which Gritty.
Speaker 5 (12:43):
Responded, sleep with one eye open tonight.
Speaker 8 (12:47):
Bird, Holy shit, Gritty calmed down. They're just engaging in
some entertained punto and you've gone straight to I will
murder you.
Speaker 5 (12:55):
In your sleep. And I think that just made him stronger,
and then eventually people kind of forgot that they hated him.
And because a lot of times I'll tell people that
nobody liked him at first, and they don't even remember
that part, which is fantastic.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
People remember what they want to remember, and what people
remember now is that Gritty is a perfect mascot for today,
edgy but fun, an anti hero and orange fur.
Speaker 5 (13:23):
I remember it turning around because people started sending me
their fan art of Gritty. People started making cakes out
of them and then getting tattoos, and that was where
I finally felt comfortable and good about it.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Gritty's story is the triumph that's almost too wild to believe.
He went from being a bomb to a hit in
just twenty four hours. Today, he's adored as much as
his monster compatriot, the Philly Fanatic. The number support this,
from the revenue generated by his sold out merchandise to
having more followers on social media than any other mascot
in both professional sports and college teams across the nation.
(14:00):
He's a lot like the story of the y'alls, pushing
the boundaries of what a mascot can be while serving
as a unifying beacon for the community.
Speaker 5 (14:08):
There's a safe way to reveal a mascot, and they
went in the opposite direction, and I think it really
paid off.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
Ryan designed gritty, but an entire team of artists and
sculptors had to create the mascot. We're going to see
what it takes to go from designing features to dancing
in the bleachers when we return.
Speaker 6 (14:26):
I like to consider myself more of a sort of
midwife to mascots. I don't necessarily create them, but I
certainly bring them into being and ensure they're a healthy
start in their life forward.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
This is Mary Hicky Panayoto. Mary has been making mascots
and costumes in Chicago since the nineteen seventies. She owned
Chicago Costume, an enormous costume shop that was around long
before Spirit Halloween Corner the Market and Chicago Mascot is
where she makes you guessed it mascots. If you love
a mascot, there's a good chance it was made by
Mary and her team. She's made mascots for the Minnesota Vikings,
(15:06):
the Seattle Seahawks, the Utah Jazz, the Chicago White Sox.
When Kellogg's needed a Tony the Tiger, they called Mary.
When chee It's needed a giant cheese It character that
was Chicago mascot as well. Mary's reputation in the mascot
industry is second to none. Her instagram is literally Mascot Maker,
and that comes from her association with one particular mascot.
(15:34):
Mary isn't just a midwife to any old mascot. She's
the midwife to the one and only Bennie the Bull,
the mascot for the Chicago Bulls. If Gritty's the greatest
mascot out there today, when I was a kid, there
was no mascot greater than Benny the Bull. I mean
sure it helps to be the mascot for the Michael
Jordan era, more agile, more athletic, more fun than any
(15:55):
of the other mascots in the NBA. And that was
in part thanks to Mary.
Speaker 6 (16:00):
I got involved because the performer for Benny the Bull
needed some repairs and came to me and said, you know,
look the seams ripped, this blew out. Can you fix that?
Speaker 5 (16:10):
I said, of course.
Speaker 6 (16:11):
I'm a little well egotistical. If you want, I say,
you know, I can do anything. I mean enough time,
enough money, I can do anything. And so I began
working with him, fixing up his costume and solving some
issues that he was having. Just sometimes people who make
things think, oh, this is how we do it, you know.
(16:31):
I hear that all the time from the people that
have gone to varying schools out here, and they say, oh, no,
that's how we do it. Well, that might be how
some people do, but here's how we're going to do
it today in this way, because we're going to do
it to solve this problem. And that's what I really
try to do. I say, what is your problem with
that mascot? And they said, well, you know, when I
lift my hands up, my arms show because my gloves
(16:52):
don't cover. Well, we can solve that problem. Or I
can't get my arms up because the sleeves are too tight,
or my head keeps falling off. There's lots of ways
we can fix the things that you're having problems with.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
I'm ready for Mary to fix all my problems, even
the ones that aren't mascot related, like my love life
or my bank account. But I also happen to have
some very specific mascot related problems as well. So this
podcast is about me going back to my high school,
graduated in two thousand and five, and our mascot was
mister Rebel. I was just looking up a photo of him,
(17:27):
because you make a good point, like we are interested
in changing this old timey sort of like a battalion
leader character into a much friendlier mascot, a biscuit, something
people are proud of in the South, something that doesn't
feel divisive. And as I look at mister Rebel, he
kind of has like angry eyes, and I think it's
(17:49):
just like the shape of his brow is a little furrowed.
You know, maybe you could give us a little advice.
Do you think our biscuits should look angry like a
fighting biscuit or should it be something like what would
bring people together more? I guess in your experience, well,
I tend to advise all of my clients never to
kind of use a human figure as a mascot, because
(18:12):
all of us are already humans, and that mascot should
be something that's not human. In addition, it's really difficult
we as humans react to things that look like us,
so in any animal or shape, and I've done a
lot of shape mascots. We really want to see eyes
and a mouth. We can't really identify or connect emotionally
(18:37):
with somebody. If we can't see eyes, you know, if
there's not a connection there. So you those are the
parts you want to pay attention to. Mary can tell
you everything there is to know about making a mascot.
She can tell you that the head can't be too heavy.
Speaker 6 (18:54):
I never want to build and ship ahead that is
under that is over five pounds, five pounds too much
to carry on the muscles of your neck.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
She can tell you what materials you can and can't use.
Speaker 6 (19:05):
There's a lot of materials that used to be used
to make mascots that they don't even make anymore because
they've been proven to cause cancer. For instance. You know
there's people that say, oh, can't you use fiberglass, And
I'm like, yeah, no, you can't. Used to, but you
can't do that anymore. Yeah, not just lead based page.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
She can tell you the things you never thought about
that then become so obvious.
Speaker 6 (19:31):
One of the things that mascots have to always be
aware of is they can't speak. There's never a mascot
that speaks. So a lot of times, you know, you
have ad agencies and things, and they want the mascots
to say stuff, but mascots don't talk. Every emotion that
a mascot needs to convey has to be done so physically.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
But the most important thing Mary will tell you is.
Speaker 6 (19:56):
I can build you a beautiful costume, but it's still
just a box, fur and fallm until you put it on.
You know it's not. It needs it needs you inside
of it to bring it to life.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
At the end of the day, a mascot is only
as good as a performer inside it. It's that person
who makes a connection with the audience, and that connection
is everything. When I talked to Brian and Mary about
the technical aspects of a mascot, what was interesting is
that they spent most of the discussion talking about humanity.
They focused on character and storytelling far more than hula
hoop bellies or height or materials or anything.
Speaker 5 (20:29):
It has to be something that can emote, like so
the eyes in the mouth have to be big and
visible and expressive, because this is something that someone could
be way up in the nosebleeds and you still want
them to be able to connect with the character. It's
not really a puppet, right Like you can't can't really
move his mouth. The eyes in Gritty's case just go
(20:53):
wherever they want. So a lot a lot goes into
a mascot's design, just in those in the face, trying
to make that as expressive as possible without it really
being able to be controlled.
Speaker 6 (21:09):
You really don't want it to be either smiling or frowning.
You don't want it to really looking happy or sad.
You want whatever face that you see to be able
to be moved in any direction that you want that
audience member to feel by what you do with your
body and with the rest of it. So that's a
real important thing. If you make something look too crazy
(21:31):
or too mean, you can never go the other direction.
You've got to remain really neutral, and often it's really subtle,
like where do you put the little flash of the eye,
how much do you put that smile line in? You know,
you've got to just just temper it ever so slightly
so that you still see a neutral looking face until
(21:52):
they start waving arms and doing things with their body
that say they're either excited or sad.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
It doesn't matter if it's a biscuit eating eater or
a gritty or a fanatic. At the end of the day,
what it needs to be is something that we can
feel with our gut is speaking to the highs and
lows of a sporting event, mania, enthusiasm, shame, joy. As
I was talking with Mary and Brian, I realized that
if anyone can give advice on how to move from
(22:18):
one mascot to another, especially if that move is a
little controversial, it's them.
Speaker 6 (22:24):
We've changed a mascot the whole. The team wants a
whole new look or a whole new thing, or that
doesn't really work for them. I say, involve the mascot.
Let it become forth. So if you team has this
old mascot, Colonel whatever, that's not going to be it anymore.
The colonel himself has to shepherd in the new guy.
(22:44):
He has to say, oh, you know, I'm retiring, I'm
going to somewhere. I got it, not I got another job,
but on this, on that. A lot of times we'll
do the same mascot, but we'll peer it down. So
I'll have them make a lot of videos of working
out and eat and write and trying to get you know, oh,
stop smoking whatever ul so that when they bring out
the new pair down version, it won't be as hard
(23:07):
on them, you know, it will the people Everybody at
first will go, oh no, oh no, that's not that's
not my mascot. Oh no, no, I want the old
guy back. But after two or three months, a couple
of games, they're okay with it. They they they get
used to it. It's like, you know, your husband's shaving
off his beard and mustache, and suddenly it's like, I
don't know you, I'm not even coming. But after a
(23:27):
while you get used to it, and then yeah, it's
hard to remember what it was like.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
Mary, of course, didn't disappoint though I'm hard pressed to
imagine HB. Death Ridge welcoming in butt at a biscuit
or whatever. But when I ask the same question to Brian,
the answer isn't about how to make the change, but
instead about something much closer to home for him.
Speaker 5 (23:50):
That is tough. We had. We had a similar not
to not to that extreme, but a similar fight locally
because my kids high school mascot is like a raider.
It's like a chief face, and like half the town
wanted to change it to something else and the other
half plus one did not, and so we still have
(24:13):
the Native American face as the mascot. They won out,
but it got heated, people were at each other's throats.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
Without prompting, Brian brought up something that we haven't discussed
yet on this podcast. If you're telling the story of
trying to change a mascot in America, you have to
tell the story of the decades long fight to remove
Native American stereotypes and offensive imagery from sports. Because while
according to Terry Burning from Mascot dB, there are still
over one hundred and fifty high schools using the name Rebels,
(24:47):
there are over two thousand that use derogatory and racist
nicknames for Native Americans, whether.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
It's Redskins, Indians, Warriors, Chiefs, Braves, any number of them. Unfortunately,
there's still there's still Redskins around, and they're still actually
Savages is still being used at a number of high
schools as well.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
I mean, come on, man, of course, the offensive team
names are not just at the high school level. While
some are changing, the Washington Redskins are now the Commanders
and the Cleveland Indians are now the Guardians, others have
clung stubbornly to their outdated racist team names. I'm looking
at you, Atlanta Braves and Kansas City Chiefs. When we
come back, we meet someone fighting her own battle against
(25:27):
racist mascots.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
I live outside of Kansas City. I live in Lawrence, Kansas,
which is like forty five minutes away.
Speaker 3 (25:37):
This is Ronda Levaldo.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
I've heard from parents that have kids in the local
school district who get mocked by the chop when they
might be athletes and they're playing sports. And I went
to a concert. I went to see thirty seconds of
Mars and they were doing the chop there, and I'm like,
oh my gosh.
Speaker 3 (25:57):
Ronda is the dean of the College of Humanities and
Arts Haskell Indian Nations University, as well as a journalist
who writes about Native American issues, and the chop she
is referring to is at the center of her work
for the last two decades trying to get the Kansas
City Chiefs to change their team name. The chop, also
known as the Tomahawk chop, is the chief signature crowd move.
(26:29):
The Atlanta Braves and the Florida State Seminoles also do
this move.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
You know when we say it's not just at the game,
and it's not like I cannot watch the game. It's everywhere.
It's in grocery stores, it's over the radio, it's on billboards.
You know, we're faced with this.
Speaker 3 (26:44):
Rhonda is one of a number of Native American activists
who have been at the forefront of the movement to
change team names for the better part of twenty years.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
We decided to organize a protest at the Kansas City
Washington football game in two thousand and five, and so
we didn't realize how big it would get, but we
had people come from everywhere, from all these different states
to come protests with us, and it was so great.
(27:12):
And after that we kind of just were like, you know,
we need to continue to keep doing this.
Speaker 3 (27:18):
Ronda and others founded the organization Not in Our Honor
in two thousand and five when they were still in college.
One of her co founders was Amanda black Horse, who
would go on to sue over the Washington Redskins name.
Both Ronda and Amanda black Horse were mentored by Susan Harjo,
a Native activist who has been trying to get team
names changed since the nineteen sixties. It was actually Harjo
(27:40):
who sued over the Redskins name first in nineteen ninety two,
when she, alongside other activists, filed the case Harjo versus
Pro Football, Inc. Harjo's case was novel. She sued to
cancel the team's trademark on the grounds that it was
disparaging to Native Americans. The hope was without a name
enforceable by trademarks, the owners would change it. Pardo's case
(28:01):
was victorious in nineteen ninety nine when the Patent and
Trademark's Office canceled the Redskins trademark before being overturned on
technicalities in two thousand and three. It would continue to
wind its way through courts before finally being decided in
favor of the Redskins in two thousand and eight. Black
Horse and others picked up the case and sued again
in twenty twelve, citing instances of twelve rejections of the
(28:22):
name Redskins by the Trademark Office on grounds of the
word being disparaging since the original case in nineteen ninety two.
The Black Horse case was victorious. In twenty fourteen, the
trademark office canceled the football club's trademarks. That is until
twenty seventeen, when the Supreme Court, deciding on a different case,
ruled that the part of the trademark law banning disparaging
(28:43):
names was unconstitutional. The team kept the name until twenty twenty,
when the murder of George Floyd in the Summer of
racial Reckoning finally pushed the decades of Native American activism
around the club's name to the forefront, and the team
announced it was finally changing. The Cleveland Indians followed suit
a year later. It wasn't just pro teams that were
(29:03):
moving away from Native mascots. In twenty nineteen, main passed
a law banning Native mascots. In twenty twenty two, the
New York State Education Department issued a memo requiring schools
to ensure that district mascots, team names, and logos are
non discriminatory. Kansas has passed a non binding resolution encouraging
the elimination of Native mascots in the next few years.
(29:26):
Laws are also on the books in California, Colorado, Michigan, Nevada, Oregon,
and Washington. It's taken decades and the work of countless
activists and organizations, but team names are really changing.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Yeah. There's a website that I track that goes through
and there's anywhere from it's got to be close to
fifty or sixty per year that are changing away from
that Native American mascotry.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
Again, Terry Barning.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
I know that with Native American mascots, I believe it
was a Didas offered some grant money change your mascot.
Here's a could change to help you with that.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
Native team names are changing across the country, except stubbornly
in Kansas City where Rhonda is still fighting.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
Now it's become a bigger movement because we have more
people who have eyes on us, and we know Kansas
City the football team doesn't appreciate what we do because
they're continually being blasted by people who are who realize
like their efforts to be like end racism is not working.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
It's progress, but it's not over, not by a lot.
And the harms inflicted on Native communities are significant.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
You know, just from us telling people that it's very
hurtful to us, and you know, people not believing that.
We actually had to go get evidence of statistical evidence,
if you can believe that these things are harmful. We
had to get you know, numbers to show that, yes,
(30:55):
this is harmful to our students, This is harmful to
our kids. It makes them think of how they see
themselves in a different way, and how others see themselves
as well.
Speaker 3 (31:07):
It's protecting Native children and their communities from that harm
that has led Ronda to stand outside football stadiums, protesting,
most of the time in groups and sometimes alone. As
a Native American woman, she already faces significant risks of
physical violence in this country. Standing outside football stadiums confronting
(31:27):
intoxicated and often aggressive men can be an intimidating experience.
If you translate this down to the high school level,
how likely is it that a teenage Indigenous girl would
feel safe protesting her mascot at her school, where she
would definitely face similar dangers.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
It's gotten a little bit scarier, and I would say
even now with social media it's even worse because I
get tons of messages in my different social media accounts,
people threatening me. I've had peopils the ox and my address,
and so I've actually gotten a letter and it was
(32:06):
just a type letter, and it just had a blank
piece of paper in it and it just said four thirty.
Don't know what that meant. We were just kind of
like okay, and so every time at like four thirty,
we're like freaking out, like soon we're gonna do something.
But at the same time, like, you know, I'm kind
(32:28):
of like, you know, if you want to do that,
that's that's what this means to you. If you're that
indebted that you have to threaten me, then okay, I
guess so we're gonna go there.
Speaker 3 (32:42):
These angry, rabid fans and their willingness to threaten violence
over a mascot, are inadvertently proving the point this isn't
just a harmless symbol. It's deeply embedded in their identity,
which is precisely why it matters and why it needs
to be examined.
Speaker 5 (32:56):
I learned that with Gritty too. There were a lot
of people with the flyers who like either really didn't
want a mascot or they they didn't like the direction
of Gritty, and they were I was surprised by the
anger of it. Anytime you're trying to mess with tradition,
(33:17):
you have to be ready for serious backlash. So I
totally agree with what you're saying about wanting to change it.
But the trouble is that so many people on that
side are going.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
To be entrenched backlash in the name of tradition. You
see it everywhere right now, not just pushing against changing mascots,
but pushing against change period. But change is good and
thankfully for those of us advocating for it. We don't
just hear from people who fear it. We hear from
those that embrace it as well.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
For us, if you know, it's important that we make
our voices heard, and you know it's important for other
people around the country who believe in what we're doing,
like they're constantly sending us messages like they thank you
for doing this, thank you for standing.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
Up for Rhonda. The words of encouragement keep her going,
but so does the hope that one day she won't
have to be out there anymore.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
One day our kids do not have to deal with
this type of imagery, and I would love for that
to happen. And I think people think, you know, if
we get rid of these images and stereotypes, that nobody's
going to remember who we are. And I'm like, we're
always going to be here, We're always going to be
part of the community, and you could at least understand
(34:33):
that you're making us feel more like human beings and
so and a part of that community. We're not a
part of that community. I would love to be able
to cheer for Kansas City, but I can't. It's just
is disgusting and gross.
Speaker 3 (34:48):
It's not a lot to ask to cheer for your team,
to be a part of a community, to be represented
by something that you can see yourself in, whether it's
a big orange monster blasting a T shirt at a
fan at close range, a red bull executing a flip
on their way to dunking a basketball, maybe just maybe
a biscuit or whatever. We all deserve to feel welcome.
(35:09):
We all deserve to be included. We all deserve to
be a part of the shared experience, the family, the
kinship that is sports. In our next episode, we hone
in specifically on the push to change rebel mascots across
the country and meet a few other Rebel alumni who
have been able to create change in their own schools,
even if it took them literal decades.
Speaker 4 (35:31):
Huh.
Speaker 3 (35:32):
All that and more next week. Rebel Spirit is a
production of Ninth Planet Audio in association with iHeart Podcasts.
Reporting and writing by me Akuila Hughes. I'm also an
executive producer and the host. Produced by Dan Sinker, edited
(35:56):
by Josie A. Zam Our. Assistant editor is Jennifer Dean.
Music composed by Charlie Sun, Sound design and mixing by
Josie zahm Our. Production coordinator is Kyle Hinton. Our clearance
coordinator is Anna Sunenshine. Production accounting by Dill pret Singh
Additional research support from Janice Dillard. Special thanks to Jay
Becker and the whole team at BLDG, the Florence Yawls,
(36:19):
Amber Hoffmann, and Leslie Chambers. Executive producers for Ninth Planet
Audio are Elizabeth Baquett and Jimmy Miller.
My own black of dollar has gone on overlanding Rentro.
I don't know I.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Ninth Planet Audio cat com We're overlanding, You're Nolan.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
Over We're halfway through our quest to change the Boone
County Rebels to the Boone County Biscuits or whatever, really
anything that isn't rooted in the Confederacy. We've talked with historians,
we've talked with designers, we've talked with people who want
to make real change in the Florence, Kentucky community. But
there's one group of people we haven't heard from.
Speaker 4 (00:33):
Like almost average school has some type of cat.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
If you can't tell from my nervous laughter, I'm talking
to real life high school students in Florence, Kentucky about
their mascots. I got to sit down with a few students,
not from Boone County, but from nearby Connor High School,
mostly because their moms made them. Connor is home of
the Cougars. There are, as noted, a lot of big
cats in the area. But I wanted to know what
they thought the role of a mask it was, and
(01:01):
if you could change the mascots, what would you change
them to.
Speaker 4 (01:04):
I don't really know what I would change it to,
but definitely something that represents school as a whole, but
also something that like encourages people to be kind of funny.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Like some of the mascots just stand there.
Speaker 5 (01:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (01:18):
Yeah, it should be able to adit.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
They're not like engaging.
Speaker 6 (01:21):
It's kind of like a boring concert.
Speaker 4 (01:22):
Most people at our school do like it.
Speaker 5 (01:25):
Yeah. It gives people like like a base to say
that they went to that school. They don't just say, oh, yeah,
I was a part of that Connor High.
Speaker 4 (01:33):
School basketball team.
Speaker 5 (01:34):
It makes it sound more important.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
I guess I was like appreciated.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
Yeah, how important is it for you to have like
a physical mascot like in the school or like at
the games and stuff.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
I feel like it gets us more involved, like with
the school a little bit.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
It just makes us feel like more into it. Yeah,
I feel like we're more a part of it.
Speaker 5 (01:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:56):
I feel like the mascot kind of represents me in
a sense, like I'm not actually the audience.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
Yeah, they get it, you get it. A mascot isn't
just a silly costume. It's a big deal for school spirit.
And here's the thing it cuts both ways. A bad
mascot can make you feel like an outsider, like you'll
never quite belong. But a good mascot it's something you
can rally around, something you can high five or even hug.
(02:24):
A good mascot makes all the difference. And today we're
going to learn what makes them work from some of
the people who have created the most memorable mascots of
all time.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
I was a leady rebel, like, what does that even need?
Speaker 6 (02:37):
The Boon County Rebels will stay the Boone County Rebels,
but the image ofts.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Right here in black and white and friends bigger than
a flag or mascot.
Speaker 5 (02:46):
Anytime you're trying to mess with tradition, you get to
be ready for serious.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Backgrounds from Ninth Planet Audio. I'm Akila Hughes and this
is Rebel Spirit, Episode five Mascots, and.
Speaker 7 (03:07):
I don't want to rain on your biscuit parade again.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
This is Jay Becker from BLDG in Covington, Kentucky.
Speaker 7 (03:15):
I had my fortieth three union last weekend, and I
said to somebody, what if the name of our high
school team had been the Biscuits. They're like, I wouldn't
have come to this, It was like, or I probably
wouldn't have gone to that school. Wow, because high schools
are pride points for young people. This is why we
have to change it.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Okay, so Jay hates the Biscuits, I get it, but
he knows that the rebels have to change. So while
he and his team at BLDG gives some thought to
how to help us make change, I wanted to understand
just how out there some mascot names get.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Baseball goes back to the eighteen hundreds, and they've got
some crazy names, like the food Sufferers. It's like the
salary pickers and the fruit pickers.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
And this enthusiastic voice belongs to Terry Burning, author of
the website mascot dB dot com, a free searchable database
of team names and mascots.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
All that's fascinating gets data to me and like, let's
try to get this all into like this big thing
that everybody can look at. Started with high school just
you know, wanting to get that information on retired high
school mascots, but it definitely blossomed. It's a hobby for me.
I don't make any money from this really, just enough
really from advertising to support the site.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
And of course the big question for Terry.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
I found like two hundred and fifty two instances of
high schools throughout the ages that have used rebels as
their mascot, And out of those two hundred and fifty two,
I found that one hundred and fifty two are still active. Now.
I just I went especially throughout the Old South, and
I really updated did some research and found which of
(04:47):
those have changed. I didn't focus so much on all
the states because I didn't have the time to do that,
so that one hundred fifty might be a little bit
lower than that. But I did find like a good
dozen throughout the last especially ten years that have changed
from rebels to things such as the Huskies, the Hawks,
(05:08):
Red Hawks, Wolves, or wolf Pack. A couple did the Titans.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
What a relief, So it can happen. Schools can really change,
and they changed to some expected choices big cats, wild animals, etc.
I doubt any have changed to the Biscuits, right.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
There's actually a famous minor league team, the Montgomery Biscuits.
Shout out to them. They're actually one of the most
popular minor league teams. They do very well with merchandising,
so you might be onto something there, like the Montgomery
Biscuits used to be something else.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
Guess what the Montgomery Biscuits were before they were the Biscuits,
the Rebels. Montgomery was represented in the Southern League by
a team called the Rebels in the late sixties through
nineteen eighty. Then they had no team until the Biscuits
became Montgomery's first Major League Baseball affiliated team in two
thousand and four. The owners selected the team's nickname from
(05:58):
over four thousand entries and name the team contest. The
official team colors are butter and blue. Their mascots are
Monty and anthropomorphized buttermilk biscuit, and on field they have
big mo, an orange ant eater that loves biscuits hard.
Same speaking of large, giant orange mascots.
Speaker 5 (06:19):
You bring kids to the game and they could care
less about what's going on, but like they come home
with a Gritty T shirt and they saw Gritty on
the screen or they got to meet him, and then
like you have that connection to the team that when
you grow up, it just never leaves.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
Brian Allen is an illustrator and creative director living in
the bellefont area of Pennsylvania. He's worked with major brands
and bands like Metallica, Hulk Hogan, and Activision. But his
most famous creation is the Philadelphia Flyers mascot Gritty.
Speaker 5 (06:52):
I don't know many names of mascots, you know. I mean,
I know the fanatic, I know Gritty. There's something about
his name where people who don't even follow hockeys still
know him and it just clicks because he is a
gritty looking creature. The story of Gritty that they made
(07:16):
up was that he was born in the basement of
the stadium or something like that, and like he would eat,
he would eat hot dogs that fell through the bleachers,
and that's how he survived for years until for some
reason he came up.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Gritty, for the uninitiated, is the NHL mascot for the
Philadelphia Flyers. He's a neon orange monster with a cascading
orange beard and cookie monster style googly eyes that look
more deranged serial killer than Sesame Street. While most mascots
are there for fun and to take pictures with kids,
Gritty has more of an edge, very much in line
with the culture of Philly, a city whose sports fans
(07:51):
have a well deserved rowdy reputation. He deliberately shoots T
shirts at fans, slips on the ice a little too often,
and has cultivated an unapologies deetically assertive social media presence,
but Gritty almost didn't exist.
Speaker 5 (08:04):
I had someone from the Flyers marketing team reach out
to me just a few months actually, before they were
going to release Gritty. At the time, I didn't know
that the Flyers were even creating a mascot. It was secret.
They had been working with another company before they worked
with me. They weren't liking what they were getting because
(08:27):
everything they were getting was kind of friendlier and nicer.
And they found some artwork of mine that I had
done for another team or I think it was a commercial,
and I had a tiger that was kind of had
an attitude to it, and they really liked that because
when they hired me, they told me that they wanted
(08:48):
Gritty to be somebody that you wanted a high five,
but not hug So he had to have a little
bit of toughness. And I keep almost saying gritty because
that's how we described it a first. It's like we
wanted him to have a little grit and be gritty.
But that was before they picked his name.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
There wasn't a lot of time left, and so Brian
did what Brian does best. He drew a lot.
Speaker 5 (09:15):
I drew all different types of monsters, but I also
drew weird things like we played with the idea of
a bat at first, or I drew like an old pilot,
like an old Barren pilot, just trying to think of
anything that connected with the Flyers. There was a bulldog,
(09:36):
there was like a tough like hockey goon guy. But
the ones that really stuck were the monsters, the just
sort of weird amorphous creatures that you had, no you
didn't know what gender they were, you didn't know what
species they were. Got one actually that looked pretty similar
(09:56):
to what Gritty looks like now from that first batch.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
You know, perfection when you see it right, well almost.
Speaker 5 (10:03):
He had wings at one point, like so then you
put wings on him and you start thinking like are
they feathered wings? Are they insect wings? Then then we
decided ings wings were really dumb and we took them off.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
Luckily, Brian Drew and re drew working with the art
director of The Flyers until finally Gritty was Gritty. They
eventually ended up with a three D turnaround drawing where
you can see a front, side and back view that
Brian handed off to the costume company to sculpt it
into life. Brian saw Gritty at the same time we
all did, when he skated out on the ice for
the first time. And this moment, the moment that Gritty
(10:40):
was first introduced to the world, was why I wanted
to talk with Brian, because well, everyone loves Gritty.
Speaker 5 (10:46):
Now.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
When he was first introduced, well, all.
Speaker 7 (10:49):
The Philadelphia Flyers have it in mascot. Fans are saying, what.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
Uh that's seven foot.
Speaker 7 (10:54):
Tall Gritty Britty unveiled today in front of a group
of kids probably scot for life.
Speaker 8 (11:00):
Yeah, those kids should be scorned for life.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
Gritzy is fucking horrific.
Speaker 8 (11:05):
The Philadelphia Flyers are being mocked online for their new
team mascot, which is a seven foot tall, fuzzy creature
named Gritty with a long orange beard, googly eyes, and
I assume a dining bag of mostly stems. And everyone's saying,
it's hard to tell exactly.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
What Gritty is supposed to be.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Is he a muppet?
Speaker 5 (11:26):
Is he a yetti?
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Is he some kind of bigfoot?
Speaker 8 (11:29):
Nobody has any idea.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Yes, listener, it's hard to remember now, but when Gritty
was first introduced, he was mocked mercilessly, and Brian was
there watching it all unfold in front of him.
Speaker 5 (11:43):
I always get nervous whenever something big like this is revealed.
But I thought it would just be local, so I
thought the only people who would care would be people
from Pennsylvania. So it certainly didn't expect it to be
on like John Oliver Show. And you know, Conan, this
is an interesting fact.
Speaker 8 (12:04):
Gritty was actually the first mascot ever based on the
crayon drawings of a five year old who saw his
parents murdered.
Speaker 5 (12:12):
We had no idea how big it would get, and
that is in a large part due to the excellent
work of the marketing team at the Flyers. They really
did an excellent job of just rolling with the criticism
and the reaction and having fun with it and like
(12:34):
answering back in a way that they didn't apologize for it.
Speaker 8 (12:38):
Basically by the Pittsburgh Penguins tweeting lol okay, to which Gritty.
Speaker 5 (12:43):
Responded, sleep with one eye open tonight.
Speaker 8 (12:47):
Bird, Holy shit, Gritty calmed down. They're just engaging in
some entertained punto and you've gone straight to I will
murder you.
Speaker 5 (12:55):
In your sleep. And I think that just made him stronger,
and then eventually people kind of forgot that they hated him.
And because a lot of times I'll tell people that
nobody liked him at first, and they don't even remember
that part, which is fantastic.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
People remember what they want to remember, and what people
remember now is that Gritty is a perfect mascot for today,
edgy but fun, an anti hero and orange fur.
Speaker 5 (13:23):
I remember it turning around because people started sending me
their fan art of Gritty. People started making cakes out
of them and then getting tattoos, and that was where
I finally felt comfortable and good about it.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Gritty's story is the triumph that's almost too wild to believe.
He went from being a bomb to a hit in
just twenty four hours. Today, he's adored as much as
his monster compatriot, the Philly Fanatic. The number support this,
from the revenue generated by his sold out merchandise to
having more followers on social media than any other mascot
in both professional sports and college teams across the nation.
(14:00):
He's a lot like the story of the y'alls, pushing
the boundaries of what a mascot can be while serving
as a unifying beacon for the community.
Speaker 5 (14:08):
There's a safe way to reveal a mascot, and they
went in the opposite direction, and I think it really
paid off.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
Ryan designed gritty, but an entire team of artists and
sculptors had to create the mascot. We're going to see
what it takes to go from designing features to dancing
in the bleachers when we return.
Speaker 6 (14:26):
I like to consider myself more of a sort of
midwife to mascots. I don't necessarily create them, but I
certainly bring them into being and ensure they're a healthy
start in their life forward.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
This is Mary Hicky Panayoto. Mary has been making mascots
and costumes in Chicago since the nineteen seventies. She owned
Chicago Costume, an enormous costume shop that was around long
before Spirit Halloween Corner the Market and Chicago Mascot is
where she makes you guessed it mascots. If you love
a mascot, there's a good chance it was made by
Mary and her team. She's made mascots for the Minnesota Vikings,
(15:06):
the Seattle Seahawks, the Utah Jazz, the Chicago White Sox.
When Kellogg's needed a Tony the Tiger, they called Mary.
When chee It's needed a giant cheese It character that
was Chicago mascot as well. Mary's reputation in the mascot
industry is second to none. Her instagram is literally Mascot Maker,
and that comes from her association with one particular mascot.
(15:34):
Mary isn't just a midwife to any old mascot. She's
the midwife to the one and only Bennie the Bull,
the mascot for the Chicago Bulls. If Gritty's the greatest
mascot out there today, when I was a kid, there
was no mascot greater than Benny the Bull. I mean
sure it helps to be the mascot for the Michael
Jordan era, more agile, more athletic, more fun than any
(15:55):
of the other mascots in the NBA. And that was
in part thanks to Mary.
Speaker 6 (16:00):
I got involved because the performer for Benny the Bull
needed some repairs and came to me and said, you know,
look the seams ripped, this blew out. Can you fix that?
Speaker 5 (16:10):
I said, of course.
Speaker 6 (16:11):
I'm a little well egotistical. If you want, I say,
you know, I can do anything. I mean enough time,
enough money, I can do anything. And so I began
working with him, fixing up his costume and solving some
issues that he was having. Just sometimes people who make
things think, oh, this is how we do it, you know.
(16:31):
I hear that all the time from the people that
have gone to varying schools out here, and they say, oh, no,
that's how we do it. Well, that might be how
some people do, but here's how we're going to do
it today in this way, because we're going to do
it to solve this problem. And that's what I really
try to do. I say, what is your problem with
that mascot? And they said, well, you know, when I
lift my hands up, my arms show because my gloves
(16:52):
don't cover. Well, we can solve that problem. Or I
can't get my arms up because the sleeves are too tight,
or my head keeps falling off. There's lots of ways
we can fix the things that you're having problems with.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
I'm ready for Mary to fix all my problems, even
the ones that aren't mascot related, like my love life
or my bank account. But I also happen to have
some very specific mascot related problems as well. So this
podcast is about me going back to my high school,
graduated in two thousand and five, and our mascot was
mister Rebel. I was just looking up a photo of him,
(17:27):
because you make a good point, like we are interested
in changing this old timey sort of like a battalion
leader character into a much friendlier mascot, a biscuit, something
people are proud of in the South, something that doesn't
feel divisive. And as I look at mister Rebel, he
kind of has like angry eyes, and I think it's
(17:49):
just like the shape of his brow is a little furrowed.
You know, maybe you could give us a little advice.
Do you think our biscuits should look angry like a
fighting biscuit or should it be something like what would
bring people together more? I guess in your experience, well,
I tend to advise all of my clients never to
kind of use a human figure as a mascot, because
(18:12):
all of us are already humans, and that mascot should
be something that's not human. In addition, it's really difficult
we as humans react to things that look like us,
so in any animal or shape, and I've done a
lot of shape mascots. We really want to see eyes
and a mouth. We can't really identify or connect emotionally
(18:37):
with somebody. If we can't see eyes, you know, if
there's not a connection there. So you those are the
parts you want to pay attention to. Mary can tell
you everything there is to know about making a mascot.
She can tell you that the head can't be too heavy.
Speaker 6 (18:54):
I never want to build and ship ahead that is
under that is over five pounds, five pounds too much
to carry on the muscles of your neck.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
She can tell you what materials you can and can't use.
Speaker 6 (19:05):
There's a lot of materials that used to be used
to make mascots that they don't even make anymore because
they've been proven to cause cancer. For instance. You know
there's people that say, oh, can't you use fiberglass, And
I'm like, yeah, no, you can't. Used to, but you
can't do that anymore. Yeah, not just lead based page.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
She can tell you the things you never thought about
that then become so obvious.
Speaker 6 (19:31):
One of the things that mascots have to always be
aware of is they can't speak. There's never a mascot
that speaks. So a lot of times, you know, you
have ad agencies and things, and they want the mascots
to say stuff, but mascots don't talk. Every emotion that
a mascot needs to convey has to be done so physically.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
But the most important thing Mary will tell you is.
Speaker 6 (19:56):
I can build you a beautiful costume, but it's still
just a box, fur and fallm until you put it on.
You know it's not. It needs it needs you inside
of it to bring it to life.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
At the end of the day, a mascot is only
as good as a performer inside it. It's that person
who makes a connection with the audience, and that connection
is everything. When I talked to Brian and Mary about
the technical aspects of a mascot, what was interesting is
that they spent most of the discussion talking about humanity.
They focused on character and storytelling far more than hula
hoop bellies or height or materials or anything.
Speaker 5 (20:29):
It has to be something that can emote, like so
the eyes in the mouth have to be big and
visible and expressive, because this is something that someone could
be way up in the nosebleeds and you still want
them to be able to connect with the character. It's
not really a puppet, right Like you can't can't really
move his mouth. The eyes in Gritty's case just go
(20:53):
wherever they want. So a lot a lot goes into
a mascot's design, just in those in the face, trying
to make that as expressive as possible without it really
being able to be controlled.
Speaker 6 (21:09):
You really don't want it to be either smiling or frowning.
You don't want it to really looking happy or sad.
You want whatever face that you see to be able
to be moved in any direction that you want that
audience member to feel by what you do with your
body and with the rest of it. So that's a
real important thing. If you make something look too crazy
(21:31):
or too mean, you can never go the other direction.
You've got to remain really neutral, and often it's really subtle,
like where do you put the little flash of the eye,
how much do you put that smile line in? You know,
you've got to just just temper it ever so slightly
so that you still see a neutral looking face until
(21:52):
they start waving arms and doing things with their body
that say they're either excited or sad.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
It doesn't matter if it's a biscuit eating eater or
a gritty or a fanatic. At the end of the day,
what it needs to be is something that we can
feel with our gut is speaking to the highs and
lows of a sporting event, mania, enthusiasm, shame, joy. As
I was talking with Mary and Brian, I realized that
if anyone can give advice on how to move from
(22:18):
one mascot to another, especially if that move is a
little controversial, it's them.
Speaker 6 (22:24):
We've changed a mascot the whole. The team wants a
whole new look or a whole new thing, or that
doesn't really work for them. I say, involve the mascot.
Let it become forth. So if you team has this
old mascot, Colonel whatever, that's not going to be it anymore.
The colonel himself has to shepherd in the new guy.
(22:44):
He has to say, oh, you know, I'm retiring, I'm
going to somewhere. I got it, not I got another job,
but on this, on that. A lot of times we'll
do the same mascot, but we'll peer it down. So
I'll have them make a lot of videos of working
out and eat and write and trying to get you know, oh,
stop smoking whatever ul so that when they bring out
the new pair down version, it won't be as hard
(23:07):
on them, you know, it will the people Everybody at
first will go, oh no, oh no, that's not that's
not my mascot. Oh no, no, I want the old
guy back. But after two or three months, a couple
of games, they're okay with it. They they they get
used to it. It's like, you know, your husband's shaving
off his beard and mustache, and suddenly it's like, I
don't know you, I'm not even coming. But after a
(23:27):
while you get used to it, and then yeah, it's
hard to remember what it was like.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
Mary, of course, didn't disappoint though I'm hard pressed to
imagine HB. Death Ridge welcoming in butt at a biscuit
or whatever. But when I ask the same question to Brian,
the answer isn't about how to make the change, but
instead about something much closer to home for him.
Speaker 5 (23:50):
That is tough. We had. We had a similar not
to not to that extreme, but a similar fight locally
because my kids high school mascot is like a raider.
It's like a chief face, and like half the town
wanted to change it to something else and the other
half plus one did not, and so we still have
(24:13):
the Native American face as the mascot. They won out,
but it got heated, people were at each other's throats.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
Without prompting, Brian brought up something that we haven't discussed
yet on this podcast. If you're telling the story of
trying to change a mascot in America, you have to
tell the story of the decades long fight to remove
Native American stereotypes and offensive imagery from sports. Because while
according to Terry Burning from Mascot dB, there are still
over one hundred and fifty high schools using the name Rebels,
(24:47):
there are over two thousand that use derogatory and racist
nicknames for Native Americans, whether.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
It's Redskins, Indians, Warriors, Chiefs, Braves, any number of them. Unfortunately,
there's still there's still Redskins around, and they're still actually
Savages is still being used at a number of high
schools as well.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
I mean, come on, man, of course, the offensive team
names are not just at the high school level. While
some are changing, the Washington Redskins are now the Commanders
and the Cleveland Indians are now the Guardians, others have
clung stubbornly to their outdated racist team names. I'm looking
at you, Atlanta Braves and Kansas City Chiefs. When we
come back, we meet someone fighting her own battle against
(25:27):
racist mascots.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
I live outside of Kansas City. I live in Lawrence, Kansas,
which is like forty five minutes away.
Speaker 3 (25:37):
This is Ronda Levaldo.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
I've heard from parents that have kids in the local
school district who get mocked by the chop when they
might be athletes and they're playing sports. And I went
to a concert. I went to see thirty seconds of
Mars and they were doing the chop there, and I'm like,
oh my gosh.
Speaker 3 (25:57):
Ronda is the dean of the College of Humanities and
Arts Haskell Indian Nations University, as well as a journalist
who writes about Native American issues, and the chop she
is referring to is at the center of her work
for the last two decades trying to get the Kansas
City Chiefs to change their team name. The chop, also
known as the Tomahawk chop, is the chief signature crowd move.
(26:29):
The Atlanta Braves and the Florida State Seminoles also do
this move.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
You know when we say it's not just at the game,
and it's not like I cannot watch the game. It's everywhere.
It's in grocery stores, it's over the radio, it's on billboards.
You know, we're faced with this.
Speaker 3 (26:44):
Rhonda is one of a number of Native American activists
who have been at the forefront of the movement to
change team names for the better part of twenty years.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
We decided to organize a protest at the Kansas City
Washington football game in two thousand and five, and so
we didn't realize how big it would get, but we
had people come from everywhere, from all these different states
to come protests with us, and it was so great.
(27:12):
And after that we kind of just were like, you know,
we need to continue to keep doing this.
Speaker 3 (27:18):
Ronda and others founded the organization Not in Our Honor
in two thousand and five when they were still in college.
One of her co founders was Amanda black Horse, who
would go on to sue over the Washington Redskins name.
Both Ronda and Amanda black Horse were mentored by Susan Harjo,
a Native activist who has been trying to get team
names changed since the nineteen sixties. It was actually Harjo
(27:40):
who sued over the Redskins name first in nineteen ninety two,
when she, alongside other activists, filed the case Harjo versus
Pro Football, Inc. Harjo's case was novel. She sued to
cancel the team's trademark on the grounds that it was
disparaging to Native Americans. The hope was without a name
enforceable by trademarks, the owners would change it. Pardo's case
(28:01):
was victorious in nineteen ninety nine when the Patent and
Trademark's Office canceled the Redskins trademark before being overturned on
technicalities in two thousand and three. It would continue to
wind its way through courts before finally being decided in
favor of the Redskins in two thousand and eight. Black
Horse and others picked up the case and sued again
in twenty twelve, citing instances of twelve rejections of the
(28:22):
name Redskins by the Trademark Office on grounds of the
word being disparaging since the original case in nineteen ninety two.
The Black Horse case was victorious. In twenty fourteen, the
trademark office canceled the football club's trademarks. That is until
twenty seventeen, when the Supreme Court, deciding on a different case,
ruled that the part of the trademark law banning disparaging
(28:43):
names was unconstitutional. The team kept the name until twenty twenty,
when the murder of George Floyd in the Summer of
racial Reckoning finally pushed the decades of Native American activism
around the club's name to the forefront, and the team
announced it was finally changing. The Cleveland Indians followed suit
a year later. It wasn't just pro teams that were
(29:03):
moving away from Native mascots. In twenty nineteen, main passed
a law banning Native mascots. In twenty twenty two, the
New York State Education Department issued a memo requiring schools
to ensure that district mascots, team names, and logos are
non discriminatory. Kansas has passed a non binding resolution encouraging
the elimination of Native mascots in the next few years.
(29:26):
Laws are also on the books in California, Colorado, Michigan, Nevada, Oregon,
and Washington. It's taken decades and the work of countless
activists and organizations, but team names are really changing.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Yeah. There's a website that I track that goes through
and there's anywhere from it's got to be close to
fifty or sixty per year that are changing away from
that Native American mascotry.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
Again, Terry Barning.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
I know that with Native American mascots, I believe it
was a Didas offered some grant money change your mascot.
Here's a could change to help you with that.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
Native team names are changing across the country, except stubbornly
in Kansas City where Rhonda is still fighting.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
Now it's become a bigger movement because we have more
people who have eyes on us, and we know Kansas
City the football team doesn't appreciate what we do because
they're continually being blasted by people who are who realize
like their efforts to be like end racism is not working.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
It's progress, but it's not over, not by a lot.
And the harms inflicted on Native communities are significant.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
You know, just from us telling people that it's very
hurtful to us, and you know, people not believing that.
We actually had to go get evidence of statistical evidence,
if you can believe that these things are harmful. We
had to get you know, numbers to show that, yes,
(30:55):
this is harmful to our students, This is harmful to
our kids. It makes them think of how they see
themselves in a different way, and how others see themselves
as well.
Speaker 3 (31:07):
It's protecting Native children and their communities from that harm
that has led Ronda to stand outside football stadiums, protesting,
most of the time in groups and sometimes alone. As
a Native American woman, she already faces significant risks of
physical violence in this country. Standing outside football stadiums confronting
(31:27):
intoxicated and often aggressive men can be an intimidating experience.
If you translate this down to the high school level,
how likely is it that a teenage Indigenous girl would
feel safe protesting her mascot at her school, where she
would definitely face similar dangers.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
It's gotten a little bit scarier, and I would say
even now with social media it's even worse because I
get tons of messages in my different social media accounts,
people threatening me. I've had peopils the ox and my address,
and so I've actually gotten a letter and it was
(32:06):
just a type letter, and it just had a blank
piece of paper in it and it just said four thirty.
Don't know what that meant. We were just kind of
like okay, and so every time at like four thirty,
we're like freaking out, like soon we're gonna do something.
But at the same time, like, you know, I'm kind
(32:28):
of like, you know, if you want to do that,
that's that's what this means to you. If you're that
indebted that you have to threaten me, then okay, I
guess so we're gonna go there.
Speaker 3 (32:42):
These angry, rabid fans and their willingness to threaten violence
over a mascot, are inadvertently proving the point this isn't
just a harmless symbol. It's deeply embedded in their identity,
which is precisely why it matters and why it needs
to be examined.
Speaker 5 (32:56):
I learned that with Gritty too. There were a lot
of people with the flyers who like either really didn't
want a mascot or they they didn't like the direction
of Gritty, and they were I was surprised by the
anger of it. Anytime you're trying to mess with tradition,
(33:17):
you have to be ready for serious backlash. So I
totally agree with what you're saying about wanting to change it.
But the trouble is that so many people on that
side are going.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
To be entrenched backlash in the name of tradition. You
see it everywhere right now, not just pushing against changing mascots,
but pushing against change period. But change is good and
thankfully for those of us advocating for it. We don't
just hear from people who fear it. We hear from
those that embrace it as well.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
For us, if you know, it's important that we make
our voices heard, and you know it's important for other
people around the country who believe in what we're doing,
like they're constantly sending us messages like they thank you
for doing this, thank you for standing.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
Up for Rhonda. The words of encouragement keep her going,
but so does the hope that one day she won't
have to be out there anymore.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
One day our kids do not have to deal with
this type of imagery, and I would love for that
to happen. And I think people think, you know, if
we get rid of these images and stereotypes, that nobody's
going to remember who we are. And I'm like, we're
always going to be here, We're always going to be
part of the community, and you could at least understand
(34:33):
that you're making us feel more like human beings and
so and a part of that community. We're not a
part of that community. I would love to be able
to cheer for Kansas City, but I can't. It's just
is disgusting and gross.
Speaker 3 (34:48):
It's not a lot to ask to cheer for your team,
to be a part of a community, to be represented
by something that you can see yourself in, whether it's
a big orange monster blasting a T shirt at a
fan at close range, a red bull executing a flip
on their way to dunking a basketball, maybe just maybe
a biscuit or whatever. We all deserve to feel welcome.
(35:09):
We all deserve to be included. We all deserve to
be a part of the shared experience, the family, the
kinship that is sports. In our next episode, we hone
in specifically on the push to change rebel mascots across
the country and meet a few other Rebel alumni who
have been able to create change in their own schools,
even if it took them literal decades.
Speaker 4 (35:31):
Huh.
Speaker 3 (35:32):
All that and more next week. Rebel Spirit is a
production of Ninth Planet Audio in association with iHeart Podcasts.
Reporting and writing by me Akuila Hughes. I'm also an
executive producer and the host. Produced by Dan Sinker, edited
(35:56):
by Josie A. Zam Our. Assistant editor is Jennifer Dean.
Music composed by Charlie Sun, Sound design and mixing by
Josie zahm Our. Production coordinator is Kyle Hinton. Our clearance
coordinator is Anna Sunenshine. Production accounting by Dill pret Singh
Additional research support from Janice Dillard. Special thanks to Jay
Becker and the whole team at BLDG, the Florence Yawls,
(36:19):
Amber Hoffmann, and Leslie Chambers. Executive producers for Ninth Planet
Audio are Elizabeth Baquett and Jimmy Miller.
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