Bluffton school finally gets a mascot — but it needs to be less violent, board says
For four years, Bluffton’s River Ridge Academy has used a crest as its symbol but has not had a mascot — something that new principal Brian Ryman wants to change, as he told Beaufort County School District’s operations committee Tuesday.
But when board members viewed the proposed River Ridge Raiders design — a knight carrying the school’s crest in one hand and a large sword in the other, with the blade in front of and extending past the shield — some protested that the design was too violent.
“I have one concern about it,” board vice chairwoman Cathy Robine said as soon as Ryman finished presenting the design.
“Sure, the sword,” Ryman responded.
Ryman said Wednesday that one parent brought up the sword in a school improvement committee meeting where he first asked for feedback on the design, but other parents were supportive, saying the sword looked great and that it echoed the school’s crest, which has two crossed swords behind it.
“I am aware of schools and images,” Ryman said of the controversies that sometimes come with mascot choice. “But, you know, we’re the Raiders.”
When he searched for images of other Raider mascots, he found an assortment of Native Americans, Vikings and knights — with one common thread.
“Most of them do include swords,” he said Wednesday.
Robine, a former teacher and principal, said she’d prefer the mascot without a sword.
She cited the “current climate” around weapons in schools and her experience with students coming to her school dressed as its mascot when she was a principal.
“If kids came to school dressed like that, would they come with the sword?”
Some board members said they were fine with keeping the sword — just not in the forefront of the image.
“I wouldn’t be opposed to having the sword there, but toned way down,” board chairwoman Christina Gwozdz said. “Behind the shield, maybe; maybe don’t show the point.”
Board secretary William Smith agreed with Gwozdz; board member John Dowling suggested a sheathed sword.
“The first thing that I see when I look at that is this humongous sword, weapon,” Dowling said. “... I don’t think the purpose of athletics is to decapitate your opponent, necessarily.”
Ryman said Wednesday he had talked to Vilimantas Vaitas, the Bluffton High School art teacher he had asked to design the mascot, about the board’s suggestions.
Ryman said he did not know if the sword would remain in any new designs, but that he was considering bringing multiple mascot options to the committee at a future meeting.
How River Ridge got the crest
Ahead of River Ridge’s opening in 2015, a committee of two school board members, several district officials and parents took suggestions for the new school’s name, colors and mascot.
The three finalists for the school’s new mascot were the Raiders, the Panthers and the Sharks; the Raider was chosen in spring 2014.
Since then, the school’s symbol has been a purple and black crest with two swords crossed behind it, decorated with two Rs, an outline of the state of South Carolina, and a palmetto tree with a moon behind it.
“I’m not trying to get rid of the crest by any means,” Ryman said Tuesday. “But I think there’s a need in our school, especially in the athletic department, for the image of a mascot.”
Ryman, who was selected as River Ridge’s principal in June, presented the Raiders mascot concept to the school’s positive behavioral interventions and supports committee, student council and school improvement committee in October.
The response “was overwhelmingly positive,” he said Tuesday, and all the groups liked the knight because it incorporated the shield and swords of the current crest.
The county’s other mascots
Currently, only three of the district’s 30 schools have non-animal mascots: Port Royal Elementary School’s Mariners, Robert Smalls International Academy’s Generals and Whale Branch Early College High School’s Warriors.
The Warrior mascot is the only one with a human representation, in the form of a purple-and-gold-clad man in chest armor, a Spartan-style helmet and a kilt. He does not carry weapons, district spokesman Jim Foster said Wednesday.
The Generals mascot caused controversy in 2015, when Robert Smalls Middle School alumni called the newly pre-K-8 school’s redone logo — a bust with a half-black, half-white face and Revolutionary War-era hat — an affront to the school’s namesake, an escaped slave who became a Civil War hero and five-term congressman.
In October 2015, the school board approved a new dark green logo, with the school’s name encircling a ‘G’ for Generals flanked by two white stars. The board also passed a concept for a mascot that includes a period-accurate uniform.
Next steps
Ryman will return to the operations committee with a redesigned mascot. The committee’s next meeting is at 3 p.m. Dec. 11, though the knight might not be discussed there.
“The general concept is great,” committee chairman David Striebinger told Ryman. “It’s just the sword.”