TURNERS FALLS — In the midst of growing debate over whether to change the Turners Falls High School Indians mascot, many students leaving classes Friday for the weekend said they support keeping the mascot.
The issue arose this spring, when a handful of community members, arguing that naming a mascot after a race of people is offensive, asked the Gill-Montague Regional School Committee to consider changing the mascot during a May 24 committee meeting.
Since then, residents who call for keeping the mascot have created a Change.org petition, which had generated more than 700 signatures by Friday evening.
Members of the Turners Falls football team, who are playing an away game in Connecticut today, are well aware of the petition, and some even admitted to having signed it.
“I think people think that we’re dishonoring the Indians, but we’re really representing them in the most honorable way that we can,” said 18-year-old senior Michael Babcock, a member of the football team. “We’re proud to be the ‘Indians.’”
Emily Sisson, a 14-year-old freshman and cheerleader who has lived in Turners Falls her whole life, argued that changing the mascot would provide an unnecessary expense for the school.
“It’s been the Indians for decades,” she said. “Everything has an Indian head or ‘Indians’ on it. The school doesn’t have the money to change everything.”
Erving resident Kyle Bergmann, a 17-year-old senior on the school’s football team, agreed with Sisson, saying that the sports teams would need to purchase all new equipment.
“We just got a bunch of new stuff that says ‘Indians’ on it,” he said. “Why change it now?”
Jack Darling, an 18-year-old senior also on the football team, argued that school alumni have amicable relations with the local Native American tribes, who he claimed haven’t expressed concern with the mascot.
“They’ve said they see no problem with it and neither do I,” Darling said.
For Darling, being a Turners Falls “Indian” is a point of great pride. He has a Native American skull with a headdress tattooed in black ink on his chest.
Sisson agreed with Darling, saying that having the school’s mascot be the “Indians” is not meant as a sign of disrespect toward Native Americans.
“All we have is respect, pride and honor for the school and our sports,” she said.
Even non-athletes at the school didn’t see a problem with the mascot.
“I don’t think it’s offensive at all,” said 14-year-old freshman Kody Fisher, who isn’t currently on any sports team. “I’m for keeping it. That’s our pride right there.”
Others, like 14-year-old freshman Dabney Rollins who plays volleyball and basketball, and 15-year-old freshman Korey Martineau, who doesn’t play sports, were ambivalent about the mascot.
“It’s just a sports team name,” Martineau, a lifelong Turners Falls resident, said.
Still other students, like 14-year-old freshman and basketball team member Anthony Peterson, just hope to keep with tradition.
“I’ve lived here all 14 years,” Peterson said. “I’m just so used to it being the Turners Falls ‘Indians.’ I don’t think we should change it.”