Many schools in Oklahoma have indigenous mascots, although attempts are being made to remove them
When fall sports begin, dozens of Oklahoma high schools will rally behind teams with a similar mascot – a Native American wearing a war bonnet.
Two decades after some of Oklahoma’s largest tribes called for an end to stereotypical Native American team names and logos, nearly 60 schools or school districts still use them, an Oklahoma analysis shows.
The teams are spread across the state, from the Smithville Braves to the Little Axe Indians to the Idabel Warriors.
Three schools – Kingston, McLoud and Rush Springs – use a nickname widely considered a racial slur to describe Native Americans. Washington’s NFL team abandoned the same team name in 2020.
Six other schools compete as Savages, including LeFlore, which hosted a #BeaSavage back-to-school party earlier this month. The sports teams at Tecumseh, which is named after a prominent Shawnee chief, also compete as Savages.
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The school’s mascot bears little resemblance to the real Tecumseh. Rather, it is one of nearly 40 schools whose mascots are generic images of Native Americans, many of them topless. Other schools have spears or arrows.
Studies have shown that Native American-themed mascots can damage the self-esteem of Native American children. Researchers have also found that stereotypical mascots can influence people’s perceptions of Native Americans.
These and other reasons were cited by the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee and Seminole when their leaders called for the abolition of Native American-themed mascots in 2001. “The continued negative use of American Indian tribal names and images is an offensive and repugnant practice that would be considered intolerable if other ethnic groups or minorities were similarly portrayed,” the tribes said in their joint resolution.
But the names and images remain popular, even as more states and professional teams have phased them out. About 11 percent of schools in the state continue to use them.
Some Oklahoma state legislators attempted to ban particularly offensive mascot names in 2005, but the bill never advanced. The state’s high school sports rules do not mention Native American mascots.
Some schools have dropped their old mascots or team names, including Capitol Hill High School in Oklahoma City and Union High School in Tulsa. They are now called the Red Wolves and Redhawks.
Other schools have resisted change. Victor Cope initially asked the board of his alma mater Tecumseh to retire its mascot in 2021, he later told local Countywide News.
“Are we going to hold on to a politically incorrect word for the sake of tradition?” Cope is said to have said at a board meeting in 2023, according to the newspaper.
The officials took no action.
To determine how many high school teams in Oklahoma have Native American-themed names or mascots, The Oklahoman consulted an online mascot database from iwasatthegame.com, a website devoted to Oklahoma high school sports history. The newspaper then reviewed the images used by each school with Native American names and eliminated from the list those schools that had merged or closed.
The analysis found that of the 57 schools with Native American team names or mascots:
- The most common team names are “Warriors,” used by 18 schools, and “Indians,” used by 16 schools. One school not included in the count is the Claremore Christian Warriors, whose mascot resembles a knight.
- Other common teams are Braves, Chiefs or Chieftains and Savages.
- Two team names are unique: the Enid Plainsmen and the Hominy Bucks. Berryhill is unique in calling its boys’ teams Chieftains and its girls’ teams Maidens.
- Images of Native Americans are by far the most commonly chosen mascot. Two-thirds of schools with Native American names use them.
- Ten of the schools use a capital letter as the main logo for their sports teams, but most of these initials are decorated with feathers or arrows.
