Chief Wahoo is about to be retired. Will Anderson Redskins name be next?

With a national conversation burgeoning over the Cleveland Indians' decision to closet their Chief Wahoo logo, local conversation is stirring about the fate of the Anderson Redskins team name.

Some say the name and logo are racist and offensive. Others say it's a tradition.

Jim Frooman, president of the Forest Hills Local School District Board of Education, said the district is aware of the issue.

"The issue has been rolling around for a number of years, and the attention it gets comes in waves with these national events," he said. "I think the last time we discussed this was when the U.S. patent office canceled trademarks for the Washington Redskins."

Frooman, who is in his seventh year on the board, said he thinks at some point the team name will have to be addressed.

"And by addressed, I mean discussed," he said. "And I am only one member of the board. The board has two new members and the district has a lot of issues to deal with. We have not yet set our priorities for 2018."

The tide has turned against Native American team names and mascots in recent decades. At the urging of the Oklahoma-based Miami Tribe for whom Miami University in Oxford is named, the Board of Trustees voted in 1996 to discontinue the use of Redskins as the nickname for the university's athletic teams. Today, they are the Miami Redhawks.

In 2005, the National Collegiate Athletic Association banned the use of American Indian mascots by sports teams during its postseason tournaments. Schools using American Indian mascots or nicknames would also be barred from hosting NCAA postseason tournaments. 

Yet, in 2018, the Redskin moniker remains in Anderson.

There are no rules about mascots and team names in the rules and bylaws of the Ohio High School Athletic Association.

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Richard W. Neumann, who served the Forest Hills district as athletic director and a member of the Board of Education, said Enquirer sports columnist Paul Daugherty's column this week about Chief Wahoo already had him thinking about the Anderson logo. He had supported a change before the district was approached by the American Indian Movement in 1999 to change the mascot and nickname of the high school.

Offensive mascots | USA TODAY High School Sports

Neumann said while he wasn't rebooting the issue, he supports the idea of having another conversation about the Anderson nickname.

"I think it's time now to have a truthful, rational discourse about the Anderson nickname and mascot," he said. "Especially given the climate of our country. It's important as a district and a community. It's time to revisit."

Fairfield resident Anthony Wurster, 33, is the last person to officially wear the Anderson Redskins mascot costume. A 2003 graduate of the high school, he says he doesn't think the Redskins logo is disrespectful and he believes there's no need to talk about changing it.

"It was a matter of pride for us to be a Redskin," he said of wearing the costume as a student. "I never saw or heard anything disrespectful or making fun."

Wurster said he researched Native American tribes indigenous to the area, and his paint and celebration dances were meant to honor their traditions.

"I took that seriously," he said.

He said the team name should stay as-is.

"We have much bigger issues to discuss," he said. "Things that are much bigger deals need that attention. We are too politically correct, in my opinion."

More:Indians to remove Chief Wahoo mascot from uniforms in 2019

More: Anderson board splits 3-2 on Redskins tradition

The battle over the Anderson nickname is long running.

It's been almost two decades since the Forest Hills Board of Education rebuffed the request from the American Indian Movement to change the school's mascot.

In 2003, the issue resurfaced. A diversity study committee pondered this question: "Does the Anderson community feel that Anderson High School's use of Redskins as a logo/mascot is disrespectful and/or offensive to Native Americans?"

The committee decided to keep the name, and suggested some tweaks regarding the use of the mascot because of Native American concerns over the use of dances and a peace pipe, both of which have spiritual significance.

The school changed its use of a headdress and dancing at games and removed a peace pipe and a tomahawk from the school's symbol. The mascot costume was also retired.

If the school were to switch its nickname, it wouldn't be the first time that change was made.

The school was originally home to the Anderson Comets. The nickname changed to the Redskins for the 1936-37 school year. The school district website speculates the decision was probably influenced by the faculty, many of whom were Miami University alumni. 

Charlene Teters, a Spokane tribal member and academic dean at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico, was among a group of people arrested in 1998 outside the Cleveland stadium for burning an effigy of Chief Wahoo. She told The Associated Press Tuesday it was a way for Native Americans, who make up about 2 percent of the U.S. population, to be heard after years of holding signs.

The movement now is being led by a younger generation of Native Americans who see how imagery affects them, she said.

“That says to me it’s over because our young people get it, and they’re taking up that challenge and doing it their own way,” Teters said.

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