The Mascot

There were many other mascots at Melrose High School before there was a Red Raider.

In the first half of the twentieth century, a “mascot” was not a person in a costume; it was a living good luck charm, typically a cute pet or a charismatic kid, although endearingly eccentric adults would occasionally fill the role. Because their careers were so short, often lasting just one season, they leave almost no trace in the record.

We only know about the little dog who served as the girls’ field hockey mascot in 1923 because Ruth Gurnett’s yearbook entry happens to mention that she was charged with escorting him around the field.  We only know that 4-year-old Helen McPheters served as the girls’ basketball mascot in that same year because of a chance surviving photo of the team which includes her.

While we have no similar evidence for boys’ team mascots at MHS, we know that they were as common with men as with women. Hence you see MHS graduate Frank Selee, manager of the Chicago Nationals (later the Cubs) sitting with the club mascot on his lap in 1901, and six-year-old David Balfour leading the Melrose Auxiliary Firefighters’ Department in 1942.

The “Red Raider” did not begin as a mascot. It was a nickname adopted by journalists in the late 1930s and early 1940s to describe the boys’ football and hockey teams. Around that same time, many other local hockey and football teams that wore red were beginning to be described in the same way.

The establishment of the “Red Raider” as a Native caricature took several years to develop. The old definition of a mascot as a living talisman gradually faded in importance, replaced by a warlike costumed figure who could compete in the context of neighboring teams called “Sachems,” “Sagamores,” and “Warriors.”

The Red Raider made sense to children of that generation, who were raised on the Native stereotypes of TV Westerns and grew up in a city that was by design over 99% white. We look forward to seeing what makes sense to the present generation when they begin the process of choosing a new mascot that reflects and respects the full human diversity of their student body.