New Logo...Not A New Nickname at Waupun

Waupun High School will have a new logo this fall. Their school board on Monday night approved a design put together by students and staff. District Business Manager Bill Zeininger says they abandoned using a Native American figure some years ago. The new logo features a helmeted knight in reference to the school's "Warriors" nickname. Zeininger says they will be working in the new logo gradually. He says Waupun's "W" logo has served them well, but didn't give them the same identity as the logo the school once used.

I think the Waupun School District did it right. In the day of being politically correct you are seeing schools totally dump nicknames with Native American in respect to their culture. I'm 100% fine with that, but there are always was to satisfy both sides and I think Waupun did that. They eliminated the insenstive part of their school's nickname but didn't get rid of their years of tradition by changing their name to some other generic name like "Wildcats."

The new logo looks sharp and will look good on T-shirts and other school related items and give Waupun an image that will make them proud.

They are still the Warriors, but in a different context. My high school growing up was the Wisconsin Rapids Lincoln Red Raiders. Our logo was a WR with an arrow through it. I think it was in the mid-90s they removed the arrows and kept the nickname and the basic logo. Back in the 1980s they had the Indian Chief that did the "War Dance" before every game. That went by the way of Illinois Chief Illiniwek, which will be retired this week.

If a team has to change their logo/nickname in order to fall in line to the "PC" world I totally understand these days...Indians....Tomahawks...Braves, etc are tough to find a compromise on and new nicknames probably are the direction they are going.

Names like Raiders, Warriors, even Blackhawks could find some compromise in my book.

Let's just hope schools don't choose "The Gold" as their new nickname....we've been down that road before at Marquette.