Sure, I know, we’ve just endured the horror of a misunderstood attempt to simplify branding at Oak Park and River Forest High School. A tizzy has been had. And the school decided it would be better to do something simple like blowing up tracking for freshman in the cause of racial equity than to settle on one Huskie dog mascot image rather than the current dozen.
The school’s grads have been heard, the $25,000 appropriated for branding has been returned to the vault alongside the other $100 million in taxpayer funds the school is restlessly sitting on.
However — innocently I assure you — I have since stumbled onto the website of the District 97 elementary schools and feel duty-bound to report that this school district has several of the lamest school mascots ever cornered and caged. Right, I know, these neighborhood schools have kids from Pre-K all the way through fifth grade, which is the distance from Disney Junior to the Disney Channel. They need a one-size-fits-all mascot. Don’t want to scare the little ones with a really scary lion. However, 4-year-olds are pretty sophisticated these days and you don’t want to embarrass them with some namby-pamby cartoon creature either.
Specifically, and I say this with regret since our two kids went through Beye, but that bobcat mascot is nothing but a pussy cat. It has to go. It does not evoke the cunning and confidence rightfully attributed to bobcats. Rather, it suggests impending slaughter, but with a smile. Bobcats don’t smile!
Hatch is fronted by a tiger who looks as if she has just leapt off the pages of a 1962 clip art book. The Longfellow bear is sort of lumbering in a purposeless way.
And, children, cover your ears, but what in the name of all that is righteous is that masquerade from Whittier? Is it a squirrel wearing a T-shirt offering two thumbs up, just like our lame president? For the love of god, do squirrels even have thumbs? Get me research!
There is an exception to all this dreg. The Mann mustang kind of gets my adrenaline going. This is a horse who knows where it is going. Higher test scores are almost assured.
For $49.95, I will assign the crack Wednesday Journal design department to eclipse this sad assortment of mascots. Round it up to $99.95 and we’ll throw in yet another new logo for the entire school district. Fairly pitiful that, just a few years back, D97 finally realized how hideously quaint its “little wooden schoolhouse” logo was. Then they turned around and replaced it with a damned acorn. An acorn! A metaphorical capitulation.
Aim higher, District 97.
