Weighing in on Catawba Ridge High’s mascot ahead of likely Aug. 1 Fort Mill decision

It isn’t set in stone until it’s set in stone, but it’s likely the new Catawba Ridge High School will soon have a mascot.

The Fort Mill School Board has the matter on its Aug. 1 agenda. The board will hear the top three choices from a recent student focus group. Then they are expected to choose one. And somewhere at the new school the name, logo or both will adorn athletic gear and painted walls, and no telling what all else. It may even be set in stone.

So the Fort Mill Times went near and far to get ideas on which of the top contenders — Copperheads, Coyotes or War Birds — should make the cut.

An original proposal of Rattlers was shot down.

The breakfast club

Some of Fort Mill’s longest-tenured residents get together every morning at Hardee’s on Tom Hall Street. Junior Hardee’s Boys members near 70.

The oldest will hit the century mark before Catawba Ridge graduates its first Copperhead, Coyote or War Bird. They read the paper. They’ve already chewed on Copperheads, the recent student pick.

“Everybody said why?” one group member recalls. “They just didn’t think a snake would make a symbol.”

The half dozen or so at a recent breakfast think about the mascot at ballgames. The arms and legs issue stumps them on Copperheads.

“If you didn’t need a mascot, then the snake would probably be the best,” said Bobby Faile. “If you could make a mascot out of a snake, maybe a snake would be better. But you can’t make a mascot out of a snake.”

The group decides on Coyotes. They can see a clear mascot, based in their minds on the old roadrunner cartoons. Conversation, as it does each morning at Hardee’s, spreads. Before long, kitchen staff say they’ll be weighing the options all day in their heads. Coyotes seems too much “like an arena football team.”

They like War Birds. Before the next batch of biscuits bakes, they lean toward Copperheads.

Hardee’s Boys member and Korean War veteran Leroy Atkins, tough as the pavement he walks in on, steps to the counter.

“I don’t mess with Copperheads,” he said.

But if students like it, he figures, their say ought to mean something.

“Go with the younger group,” Atkins said. “We’re getting too old to do it. Let the kids have their fun.”

Students

The students like Copperheads. They were part of an initial focus group, and the second time around they made up the whole sample. Copperheads emerged both times. Almost 50 students, current middle- and high-schoolers from the district, made up the most recent focus group.

Copperheads took almost half the first-place votes, more than twice as many as Coyotes in second.

War Birds, a reference to local World War I fighter pilot Col. Elliott Springs and his book by that name, finished fourth in first place votes, but overtook eventual fourth-place finisher Pride due to points as a second, third or fourth choice.

“Copperheads sounds the best,” said Nation Ford High School student Deonte Hayes. “It kind of just flows with the name.”

Inside the suit

Jerome Bartlett is a bit of a mascot guru. The company he founded, Higher Impact Entertainment, trains mascots to perform and provides entertainers to fill the costumes. They offer training camp sessions for mascots from his base in San Antonio, Texas.

“Most every mascot is just given a costume and they say, be funny,” said Bartlett, whose high school mascot was the Unicorns. “We give you a costume and tell you how to be funny, and how to not die from heat exhaustion. How not to smell. How to keep the costume looking good.”

Bartlett said a good mascot is more important than people think.

“The mascot is a walking billboard,” he said. “It's the face of an organization. Players come and go. Students graduate. Mascots can be around for many, many years."

He also has connections to two of the three contenders. His group trained the award-winning San Antonio Spurs’ mascot, The Coyote. Bartlett also is familiar with the nearby St. Mary’s University Rattlers, so he knows snakes.

“With the snake, I've seen snake mascots,” he said. “People will ask, what is this supposed to be?"

Some go with arms, some without. How fierce to make a snake mascot is another question.

“You don't want to scare the children, but you don't want to look like a worm," Bartlett said.

Coyotes would be his top pick.

“I like that personally because it's got the attributes of a dog, as well as if you think of cheering and howling," Bartlett said.

War Birds also allows possibilities.

“I see a really awesome bird,” he said, adding bird-theme costumes could be a little cheaper given so many variations of birds. “Maybe an eagle of some sort. The bald eagle being our national bird, I could see a really awesome bird."

Competition

Fort Mill residents aren’t the only ones who will hear the mascot over loudspeakers and see it on game programs. York County has five high schools outside the Fort Mill district.

R.J. Ochoa leads the athletic booster club at Rock Hill High School, one of many countywide devoted to sports, bands, chorus and other groups.

“Three good choices,” Ochoa said. “They did a good job as far as studying it. Coyotes sounds kind of neat. I know they're going to have a tough decision."

Opposing high schools and their fans won’t care much for the history or native status of a mascot choice. Beyond simply how good the teams are, opposing fans are likeliest to notice how a name sounds and how fierce the mascot is.

“I kind of like the way (Coyotes) sounds,” Ochoa said. “It's a mascot that I don't really think I've heard in our area. It gives the kids separation."

The pro

Whitney Creative Group makes a business of developing and promoting brands. Bart Whitney runs the company with graphic designer Kevin Grennan. Whitney likes the alliteration and “there could be some great imagery to play with” as Copperheads. He imagines coming with with a, wait for it, “striking” logo.

“The thing that concerns me is the entire snake direction,” he said. “They simply creep a lot of people out! The length of the name is a little concerning and could impact using it on sports jerseys or anywhere font size is important. Lastly, being called a ‘snake’ is a very negative connotation.”

Again, he likes the repetitive sound with Coyotes.

“The repeating consonant-vowel letter string makes for easy pronunciation,” Whitney said. “Car and pharmaceutical companies put a lot effort to select names with that type of name structure. At seven letters the length is a positive.”

His concern would be, coyotes are an actual dangerous animal living in the area.

“Would the community want to re-brand if there were coyote attacks in the future?” he asked. “Perhaps, there is a line of thinking to avoid names of natural disasters, crime or names with negative slang references.”

His top pick is War Birds.

“Love this name for the tie to history and the community,” Whitney said. “Easy to pronounce and short. While only two characters less than Copperheads, being two words makes it easy to work with graphically.”

The word “war” could have political correctness issues, but nothing so serious as to change his mind.

“If I had a personal vote, I would lean toward War Birds if the community felt strongly about connecting to some form of heritage,” Whitney said. “At the end of the day, I think Coyote is a really good name and may win out.”

Professor’s pick

Hit a style of marketing with a dart — global, online, advertising, promotions — and odds are Dr. Cara Peters teaches it. The Winthrop University professor and Fort Mill resident said there is plenty of subjectivity with designs and logos, but also reasons why certain ones win awards and customers.

Peters understands why older Fort Mill residents may favor War Birds and its nod to local history. She also understands marketing means finding that target audience, and incoming Catawba Ridge students won’t have lived through the 9/11 terrorist attacks, let alone a war a century earlier.

"It has to resonate with the students strongly," Peters said.

So her top pick isn’t surprising.

"I like Copperheads,” she said. “I'm probably with the students. My first thought is most schools go with an animal. When you do start looking at animals, it's the symbolism of Copperheads as fast and striking. It symbolizes what you want to be.”

Coyotes, she said, have more a feel of power and strength. Both have ties to the area, an important factor in deciding a mascot.

“The War Bird really brings that more than the other two, but I just don't think that students can identify,” Peters said. “They know history and they learn history, but they don't experience history."

At this point in the process, before a final logo and color scheme are set for each, the idea of War Birds may not be clear enough to put it on par with the other two. Is it a bird? A plane?

“I think that confuses it,” Peters said. “The double entendre, that confuses it. I don't think the students would really understand that."

Mascot maker

Florida-based SOBO Concepts is the U.S. partner for London company Mascot Makers. The company has more than 5,000 unique mascot creations from corporate to school to organizational. They include everything from the typical animal mascots to walking lipstick tubes, giant hands and underwater divers.

"We just try to figure out something that is somewhat relevant to the community, so there’s a reason for it other than just a name," Dean Schwartz with SOBO said. "From a mascot perspective, we can pretty much do anything."

Any of the three leading contenders in Fort Mill are viable, he said.

“I don't think one is better in terms of being easier than the other,” Schwartz said. “The Copperhead obviously is a snake, so in terms of how the mascot moves and things like that it may be a little more challenging. But not impossible by any stretch."

Coyotes are “maybe not as unique” as the other two, while Copperheads could bring in a copper color to the uniform, and War Birds could go patriotic or military-themed.

"One of those two would be cool," Schwartz said. "We could have fun with either one of those."

Ask him enough times and he may waffle on the top choices. He leans toward Copperheads, for now.

"The War Birds, wow, there's a lot of different ways you can go with that one," Schwartz said.

The verdict

The most common theme isn’t a mascot name or color scheme. It’s a thought experts say would serve the board well in making the decision. Make it personal. Make it matter.

“The main thing is to make it something that’s relevant to the area,” Bartlett said, echoing Schwartz who placed community relevance above anything else.

The hardly scientific poll doesn’t yield an obvious answer. Copperheads and Coyotes each topped the list three times, but Copperheads also finished last four times. War Birds was the most common middle choice. No pick is going to please everyone.

The school board, of course, knows as much going into the mascot question. It’s why Tommy Schmolze, assistant superintendent for the district and charged with leading both focus groups, asked if students would come to the board meeting to make their case. He sees possibilities in the top three, and some others.

“Whatever they pick,” Schmolze said, “people will get behind it.”

This story was originally published July 21, 2017 at 11:46 AM with the headline "Weighing in on Catawba Ridge High’s mascot ahead of likely Aug. 1 Fort Mill decision."