Circle game
So, this is how it ends.
All we have to show for two and a half years of rancor and division in the community is a double circle with a “W” inside it. This will surely inspire fear in our Middlesex League opponents.
Predictably, this decision was made literally in the middle of the summer, when even fewer people than usual are paying attention to what their local officials are up to.
But it was done very democratically, don’t you know.
They took a survey of any high school students they could find during summer vacation and the circle W design won over the only other choice. In the end, your new Wakefield Warrior logo was chosen by 178 out of the 900 students who attend Wakefield High School. At least it prepares them for a lifetime of local elections in which 15 percent of the voters make all the decisions.
No offense to the art teacher who was assigned the thankless and impossible task of designing a logo to replace the beloved classic Warrior Logo. But could the new logo be any more nondescript? I suppose that was the charge she was given. In their quest for a safe design that wouldn’t offend anyone, they got one that excites no one.
Of course, those who forced the change now have to pretend enthusiasm for the new logo after they put the town through two and a half years of turmoil by forcing the cancelation of the classic Indian Warrior. God forbid we have a Warrior logo that could trace its roots back to the town’s most distinguished warrior: Wakefield native and 4-star General John R. Galvin, who served as Supreme Allied Commander of all NATO Forces in Europe. His original Indian Warrior drawing appeared in his 1947 WHS Yearbook.
Those who supported keeping the classic Warrior Logo weren’t going to be happy with anything that replaced it. And who can blame them? The whole town saw evidence of that in the July 4th Parade, when the undefeated State Champion Wakefield Warrior Football Team waved flags displaying two versions of the classic Indian Warrior logo from the float that they were riding. And it is, after all, an athletic logo first and foremost, no matter how many rainbows or G clefs you superimpose over it.
It’s nothing short of mind-numbing to think back on all the time and resources that were expended fixing something that wasn’t broken and that most students and residents didn’t want changed in the first place.
What, in the end, was really accomplished?
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[This column originally appeared in the July 20, 2023 Wakefield Daily Item.]
Filed under: Columns & Essays, History, Humor, News, Opinion, Politics, Wakefield | 3 Comments
Tags: 4th of July, educators, Gen. John Galvin, Humor, Independence Day Parade, Indian, July Fourth, logo, Mark Sardella, Native American, NATO, Opinion, Politics, School Committee, schools, soldier, students, teachers, Wakefield, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield High School, Wakefield MA, Wakefield Public Schools, Wakefield Warrior Football, warrior, WHS, WMHS
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Mark Sardella 
“…fixing something that wasn’t broken”?
They weren’t trying to fix anything.
It’s much more difficult to transform a normal well-adjusted child into a confused lump of socialist slop if they’re warriors.
The Lafayette Mafia is all about destroying the independent mind of each child it gets its hooks into and turning them into a future piece ready to be plugged into the Leftist Borg.
I don’t know who’s more disgraceful – those scheming foreigners in Town Hall or the lazy, disinterested citizens worried only about their property values.
I think you meant to write ‘’uninterested’’ rather than ‘’disinterested’’.
Well expressed and nicely substantiated Mark. An absolute waste of town resources and community unification. As in the words of Gen. Schwarzkopf (RIP Sir), “It was all Bovine Scatology!”