ELLENBORO, W.Va. – There’s been quite a bit of controversy surrounding Ritchie County High School over the last few weeks as a group of alumni have organized a movement to change the single-A school’s mascot.
“We all grew up in this community, we know what it was like to grow up as Rebels, and for me, I never thought of the Rebel as anything harmful in high school,” co-organizer Ryan Alexander said. “You grow up in that community and think nothing of it. I played football, I played tennis – I was proud to be a Rebel. I went to college, was exposed to more cultures finally and quickly realized how controversial our mascot and name really is and how offensive it can be to people of color – white people, too. A lot of people [take] offense to this mascot and what it stands for.
“That’s stuck with me for the past couple of years. And then with everything that [happened] with George Floyd, you see all the changes that are happening across America, these are all positive changes.”
Since the consolidation of county high schools in the 1980s, the Ritchie County mascot has been the Rebel. While arguments are made about the semantics of the nickname, the depiction of the mascot itself – which the school has distanced itself from in recent years – clearly represented a Confederate soldier. According to Alexander, as late as 2016 there was still a big-headed cartoonish Rebel mascot at football games that was asked to not attend a playoff game due to the controversy tied to it. Some students, such as lead organizer and 2015 graduate Gavin Vincent, have even received comments from people around the state asking why the RCHS mascot was such, just from it being on their shirts.
“I was like Ryan in high school – didn’t think anything of it until my senior year,” Vincent said. “I was in Charleston for the state track meet, was standing in line at Subway and an older white gentleman kept looking at my shirt – I had a Ritchie Rebels shirt on – and I knew he wanted to say something to me. He finally did and he said, ‘Your alls’ mascot is the Rebels?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ He was like, ‘I don’t like that,’ and he told us that we need to be careful when we wear those. I think that could be a big issue for somebody that’s not aware what the outside image is to people. And if they do wear that shirt somewhere anything could happen to them, and, is it their fault because they don’t know? Why not have a mascot that you can proudly display where there’s no controversy behind it?”
In recent years, too, mascot and school name changes have ramped up in the state. Most recently, on Tuesday, the Kanawha County Board of Education voted 5-0 to change the name of Stonewall Jackson Middle School after concerns were raised by community members. Vincent also cited the Doddridge County BOE changing the elementary and middle school mascots to coincide with the high school’s, the Bulldog, which received backlash. Vincent said, however, that after speaking to members of that community that they love the one-mascot system because they can support anyone or any sports team at any level of education.
Opponents to the change say that they can see why the former depiction could be taken poorly, while others are vehemently against any change, going as far as to say the organizers of change are “leftists” and that, “This issue goes way beyond changing a mascot. It’s about having a few people shove Marxism down the throats of the fine people of Ritchie County.” Another former alumnus and football player commenting on the movement shared a photo and said that, as of 2009, the team was still taking pictures in front of the Confederate flag.
Aside from distancing itself from the soldier, the school has also taken a hardline against Confederate flags, whether an actual flag or depictions of it on clothing. But even with the proactive steps the high school has taken to rid itself of the offensive nature of the mascot, Alexander and Vincent still want to change things entirely. That way, they say, the school’s culture can begin to change and students and alumni can have a non-controversial name attached to the school.
“The school has done a good job of distancing themselves from the mascot and they’ve been replacing it with the ‘RC’ logo, but like Gavin said, wouldn’t you rather have a mascot that you can proudly represent?” Alexander said. “That being said, you look at the football locker room at Chuck Schofield Memorial Stadium, and you see the paintings of the Rebel there. So when people say that it’s not [a Confederate soldier], I find that hard [for them to argue].”
“Part of it can be looked at as, are those Confederate flags you see on license plates, clothing and flying in peoples’ yards, is that embedded in the community because we’re the Rebels?” Vincent added. “Do people fly that proudly because our school mascot is the Rebel? So if you get away from that, eventually, that stuff should hopefully phase-out.”
This week has been busy for the two. After speaking to the board of education on Monday, a meeting in which the board said it would consider changes, the duo published a petition on change.org to begin compiling signatures of likeminded folks. As this story was going to press, the petition had 265 signatures of a 500-signature goal.
The two also realize that the original intentions of the mascot weren’t malicious, but note that times have changed and with that so should something like a mascot that is now deemed distasteful.
“The original intentions of the mascot are all well-and-good, it was from the rebellion of the community of the Harrisville-Pennsboro high schools, no one’s arguing that. But times have changed, and how the county has taken on that image into what it is today is the problem,” Alexander said. “People say, ‘A rebel is just a rebel, it can be anything,’ but in the Civil War the Union soldiers were Yankees and the Confederates were Rebels. So that’s why we’re advocating for not just the mascot to be changed, but the name as well.”
Another point the opposition argues is where does all the money come from to change this? For a county that in recent years hasn’t passed major school bonds, this is an important question. Alexander and Vincent admit they don’t have all the answers but believe monies can be raised. Time would also be on their side because the switch and bill isn’t an overnight development.
“People in the community have already spoken out and said they would donate to help support athletics [for] new uniforms,” Alexander said. “So there’s fundraising that can happen. Because the school system has done such a good job of distancing themselves from the image, all you have to do is repaint the locker room, change some signs in the school and the gym floor. That’s where the biggest [part] of the budget would come from.
“I know people are asking about the money issue and expect us to have that answer. Unfortunately, I don’t have the professional answer for them, but to the people in the community who end up [seeing this], I don’t want you to think it’s going to happen immediately. It’s going take time to get it all done.”
The two also understand that this is an uncomfortable issue for members of the community. While racism is still prevalent across the country, the two don’t see their home county as inherently racist or full of racist people, nor do they think the opposition is, in its entirety, racist.
“There’s a lot of people that aren’t like that, but it’s prevalent and a lot of people want to ignore that because it is such an uncomfortable issue,” Vincent said. “Nobody wants to admit they’re wrong, and that’s a problem. The younger generation is educating themselves and admitting they’re wrong and that’s where it’s kind of stopping. But I think if you do get that out of the county and all these Confederate flags aren’t flying around – [maybe] a different race family is walking around and they don’t see a Confederate flag compared to if they do – I think that changes it a little bit.”
“I think a lot of people in our community don’t see the bad side of the flag,” Alexander added. “These are people who just don’t understand because there’s not [a lot] of other minority populations in our county. And honestly, that was me growing up. I didn’t think much of the rest of the world because I didn’t have to. I was in a community where we were in our bubble and everything was OK. But all of my views shifted as soon as I came to college and I was exposed to more of the world. There’s some racism in the county, there’s no denying that. Some of it also is just people haven’t been exposed to other cultures to see what that flag can represent to other people.”
While Alexander and Vincent kept their names private until the Monday BOE meeting, now that they’re out in the public eye as the organizers, one concern revolves around what will be said to them in private messages or a public space. So far, nothing outwardly rude has been said to them directly, but instead, they’ve gotten some support.
“This one woman, a nice message, said she hopes we [keep] our determination to make the world a better place. So that was big,” Vincent said. “I haven’t gotten any hate messages yet or experienced anything in public, but the hate that some of our supporters got at the beginning was hard to see.”
All in all, the two are determined to continue with this mission they’ve started. While they know it’s a monumental task, they hope they can make Ritchie County a more inclusive place for current and future generations. And with that, they hope their movement can spark others around the state to consider changing their insensitive mascots, too.
TWEET @ASpellman_DPost
