A Proud 'Thunderbird' Wonders: Is My High School Mascot Racist?

SOUTH HOLLAND — I went to Thornwood High School back when a future Olympic softball Gold Medalist, two World Series champions, a World Cup hurdler and an NFL running back stalked the locker rooms.

Glory years when the Thunderbirds turned the sleepy suburb of my youth into "Title Town."

I proudly wore my football jacket with a Native American icon stitched above my heart. "Chief Thunder" — usually a tall guy in a feathered headdress — danced at pep rallies. And I never thought about whether any of it might be culturally insensitive to Native Americans.

But recent civil unrest that sparked protests calling for the eradication of controversial icons — from monuments to Confederate generals and Christopher Columbus to the Chicago Blackhawks' logo and the Washington Redskins name — made me wonder if the "Thunderbirds" nickname could be next.

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So, I asked a Native American pal: Do you think my high school mascot is racist?

He told me I was asking the wrong question, one that inevitably leads to the wrong answer: Somebody's opinion. The stuff that begets Twitter wars, shouting matches and little else.

These issues deserve more nuanced debates about whether there's insensitivity embedded in a high school's iconography. Or at least an open-ended conversation starter: What inspired a school nickname?

But that doesn't happen much when you're talking about the fate of beloved icons associated with patriotism, ethnic pride and school spirit. Decisions seem to get made based on who shouts the loudest, or who wins 'yes-or-no' opinion polls. Neither of those things allow for much reflection on why and how these images came to define parts of our identity. And whether they're worth saving.

I started thinking about all this because a couple miles east of Thornwood in suburban Lansing, Thornton Fractional South High School officials are actively bungling a debate on whether to rid the school of it's Confederacy-inspired nickname, "Rebels," by avoiding a public debate about its origin story.

So far, nobody's demanding a change to my alma mater's nickname. But if that were to happen, Thornwood Principal Don Holmes told me it would be an opportunity to have a thoughtful discussion.

So, I asked Holmes: Why in our three-school that includes the Thornton Wildcats and Thornridge Falcons, Thornwood's mascot is a Native American mythical supernatural being that protects humans from evil with wings that flap thunder and eyes that shoot lightning?

The former Thornwood linebacker-turned principal — who can still bench press more than 400 pounds (about 100 pounds less than during his peak days playing linebacker at Northwestern University) — said there's a strong connection to local Native American history that he thinks makes the school worthy of the Thunderbirds moniker.

"This Native American mythical symbol is something we can all rally around," Holmes said. "We want to be cognizant of the recent happenings in our society. And if the issue does come across our doorstep I'm confident we'll make the right call for our community. But as a graduate of this fine institution, I can tell you the Thunderbird represents pride and respect, 150 percent."

He told me about Marice Wall, a hobbyist historian who works in the school library, who says she dug up a detail that connects Thornwood's nickname to the Native American's who first settled the area.

Since 1100 A.D., Native American tribes settled in a village that sustained thousands of people along Thorn Creek and nearby Wampum Lake, about a mile from the Thornwood campus as the crow flies. Over the years, archeologists have uncovered houses, cooking supplies and burial sites. Arrowheads, pottery and peace pipes there. In the 17th Century, the area was home to the Council of Three Fires — the Ojibwa, Ottawa and Pottawatomie tribes, which included dozens of clans including one known as "Thunderbird."

Around the time Thornwood was under construction in the early '70s, Wall said, an artifact unearthed nearby was adorned with a Thunderbird icon. The logo on my high school jacket is an exact replica of that centuries-old drawing, she said.

"That symbol is an acknowledgment of the people who were once here. That artifact is true evidence that Native Americans left their footprints here, and their spirit is still here. We honor that," said Wall, herself a descendant of the Cherokee and Choctaw nations.

"I think an effort and consideration was taken to connect Thornwood to the Thunderbird. It's not like someone said, 'Let's put a panther on our T-shirts. We're the Panthers.' Thornwood, and the area, has a heavy connection the Thunderbird. And, personally, I find it an honorable tribute."

Wall, a 1980 Thornwood graduate, told me she knows not everybody will agree.

"There will always be controversy. Some people see things through a different lens and find it offensive," she said. "I guess to them, the connection won't make a difference. But for me, I don't want to see the Thunderbird buried or forgotten."

Holmes agrees. In some ways, that's why he recently resurrected the original Thunderbird logo (which was replaced by an ugly hawk-looking bird a few years back). It's a touchstone to our glory days, when school pride energized the hallways. Talking about the connection between Thornwood's nickname and logo and the Native American artifact that inspired it, might bring understanding that there's value in remembering and honoring a proud history.

If only T.F South High School officials were as interested in a similar conversation.

Instead, District 215 Superintendent Teresa Lance, at the school board's request, made the particularly cowardly move to decide the issue by first sending students a survey asking the wrong question: Should T.F. South ditch the "Rebels" nickname?

Maybe it's just me, but it seems that school board members might be using the student poll to hide an ugly bias rather than having a public discussion about why T.F. South's history included flying Confederate flags (until 1993) and "Richie Rebel," the school's saber-swinging Confederate soldier mascot.

After all, Rebels-nickname sympathizers say T.F. South's cultural identity was a "joking reference" to the Civil War-like rivalry against its sister school North of the Little Calumet River.

In 1958, students who would have attended T.F North in 99.9-percent white Calumet City, succeeded, so to speak, to the newly built high school in Lansing, which was home to zero Black Americans in 1960.

It's no wonder school district taxpayers didn't object to the joke back then.

But these days, African Americans account for more than 70-percent of Calumet City's population, and white people are no longer the racial majority in Lansing.

District 215 board members should be asking themselves: What's so funny?

Mark Konkol, recipient of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting, wrote and produced the Peabody Award-winning series, "Time: The Kalief Browder Story." He was a producer, writer and narrator for the "Chicagoland" docu-series on CNN, and a consulting producer on the Showtime documentary, "16 Shots.

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