From “Raiders” to “Rutland”

A solid choice.

Good move, Rutland.

So it’s the Rutland Rutlands?

The smartest of the smarts there

It’s “Go, Rutland!” Perfect.

Ah good. So now, Rutland Rutland rutland Rutland Rutland?

Creative and nonconforming

The Rutland Rutlanders of Rutland

Rutland football team

Rutland ruland Rutland rutland, rutland Rutland rutland.

The Rutland ruttriders

This is just comical

Why didn't they go with Rough Riders?

Rutland Rough Riders? I wouldn't mess with those. Rutland Degens a good second.

Old heads can’t even think of a good name

Sterile and inoffensive

Way to take the low road

I prefer cotton heads

Big risk takers in Rutland

Bold choice

And because of this move by the Rutland school committee, racism is officially over.

Rutland is a trashy sounding name on its own. Hey someone had to say it. Rut Land. Land of ruts. Woo hoo. School pride.

Did they use the same marketing consultant that brought us Vermont Public?

According to the Department of Redundancy Department, yes….

People calling ‘Raiders’ a racist term are like the annoying kid in high school who turns every word into a sexual innuendo.

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If the mascot isn’t a disheveled addict pushing a shopping cart full of trash bags then they’ve done the name a disservice

The few, the proud, the Rutland.

The Rutland CTEs.

“RUT-ROH RAGGY!!!!!!”

Rut ro

I’d be offended having to call myself that. The hell they gonna do for a mascot?

That’s what she said.

Make Rutland Great Again

I’d pick that………

Wow thats so.... creative 😒

Beyond ridiculous and a prime example of intelligence.....

Some Rando' from Walmart

Complete with the stains and slippers?

"Lets go Rutland Rutlands, clap clap clap clap clap!, Lets go Rutland Rutlands, clap clap clap clap clap!

The way I read it is, they just don't have a mascot. it's simply Rutland and tbh I kind of like it. You aren't Bears or Eagles, fools, you're kids who go to a high school with a name. That same name is the name of your team. End of story.

the rutvegas rut mutts

Oh yeah, and they're talking on the phone (speaker phone) about how they "can't get the money to ya' right now" , whilst hauling around several cartons of marb golds.

“I NEED MY MARBS”

Whoaa, whoaaa, that's how Rutland rough riders roolllll.

I know this appears like a lose-lose situation for both sides of this issue, but I actually don’t hate the outcome.

Seems like one side (the new school board members) were for Raiders or bust. The change the name folks were, obviously, not keeping the Raiders in anyway. So, we now have no nickname.

This isn’t dissimilar to DC’s NFL team who removed their (IMO much more offensive mascot) and just went with The Washington Football Team for a few seasons. They now have a new “official” nickname and mascot again, but I think many people think the WFT was actually better.

We can just be Rutland HS for a while, and maybe a new nickname will enter parlance organically, like how many sports mascots had originally come to be.

Hopefully this puts an end to this (lol) and the rest of the state can go back to making fun of Barre for a while.

I know there’s been tons of school shootings. But vt is peaceful. when I’m driving I see police cars in parking lots. I

This is the first I've heard of them actuallysurveying students on this issue, which they should have just done from the beginning.

Our mascot should be one buttcheek because we half-ass everything in this town

One buttcheek

have you been to Vermont before? Rutland isn't some shining beacon of degeneracy. it's pretty par for the course. basically every town in the state gets dunked on for having the exact same rural small town problems.

So it’s actually nothing like the Washington football team because they actually have a name and I’d much rather be the Commies than the Rutland football team

We missed an opportunity with “Red faced retirees” as our nickname.

damn dude. we can keep the racist name and get dunked on for being racist, or we can make a small change that's undeniably not a bad thing and get snarky comments like this. no way to win.

you're totally right. we should rename to the red raiders and go back to the native American costume, because who cares?!?!? makes no difference!!!!

it was rooted in some pretty deep racism. if in 2005 they changed the logo to a pirate instead of an arrowhead I bet it would've stuck. whether it's racist now is up for debate, but the native American expert who was brought in to comment said it wasnt super cool.

as a white dude, who am I to argue? who are you to argue?

it's just gonna be Rutland, dumbass. nobody said "let's go Rutland raiders!" before. it was "let's go raiders". now it'll be "let's go Rutland".

don't be obtuse.

Almost as bad as people who don't know what they are talking about chiming in anyway, amirite?

https://www.rutlandherald.com/opinion/commentary/cassarino-rutland-red-raiders-origins/article_d7814e57-49d1-55e1-a0e4-5d2fae112966.html#:~:text=Rutland%20writers%20used%20the%20terms,being%20used%20as%20racial%20slurs.

It was the logo, not the name. U32 is called the 'Raiders' as well but they don't have an arrowhead or anything related to native Americans as their school logo.

They polled the students and teacher, which should have been step one when they first considered a name change. And, as silly as it sounds, if it's what the majority of students want, I think it's a good decision.

I mean, you can say what you want about its meaning now, but it was originally very racist in origin. Read old news articles and it's all, "the Raiders brought in more scalps at the game this weekend...", like, come on.

Yeah I agree. I mean the fact the Stoodley (quoted in the article) is finally willing to move on says a lot about the development on this issue.

Rutland hasn't had an actual mascot since the transition from the Native America to the arrowhead symbol

The Rutvegas Rutlands

Rutland is pretty much a shit show has been for awhile and it's getting worse

Um, when you search definitions you get everything from Vikings, to ships, to pirates, to Civil War. So this is literally just a case of cherry picking your outrage.

Rough Rider...like "ribbed for her pleasure"???

No, I'm saying, articles about the Rutland Raiders specifically. That is the opposite of cherry picking lol. Like, Vermont newspapers had headlines about the Rutland Raiders scalping their competition.

rutland is hella nicer than it was a decade or two ago. rutland is getting much nicer overall. yes, every town has ugly areas, and those are definitely still ugly. no, it is not getting worse overall, not even close.

the sky is not falling.

OK, so now that’s two words that are not necessarily ‘native’ to Native Americans. See how ridiculous this is getting?

Have you? Because I lived in Rutland for 5 years and this mascot epitomizes the sights in my neighborhood morning, noon and night. Unless, of course, we want to add a Rutland County Sheriff chasing down said disheveled addict.

The practice of scalping is very much in reference to the mass murder of Native Americans.

They did the 1st time. The students chose "Ravens". Then some so-called adults on the school board took it as a personal attack on their Raider glory days and voted to change it back to Raiders.

Was it a full poll of students, or just like talking to some students?

It was step one. They did the first time. The students chose "Ravens", and had that as a name/mascot for over a year. Some of the locals were upset about the change and ran for the school board to change it back to Raiders. They succeeded and have turned this into a political shit-show. Basically, the students voted for a progressive name change, and a bunch of conservative adults spent a lot of time and money for the sole purpose of getting elected to the school board to change it back. Now, some other folks got elected to the board, and we are seeing the naming decision being punted back to the students, who just want to be done with the whole embarrassing debacle, so they chose to have no mascot at all.

It’s been done by cultures around the world for 5,000 years…

And?

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Exactly

Originally, the students voted for a progressive name change to "Ravens". A bunch of conservative adults then spent a lot of time and money to get elected to the school board for the sole purpose of changing the name back to "Raiders"; they succeeded, and also succeeded in turning the school board into a political shit-show that has accomplished nothing for the students they were elected to serve. The following year, some new folks got elected to the school board, and now we see the naming decision being punted back to the students, who have wisely chosen to have no mascot at all, because they are sick of the entire embarrassment.

All the students from grades 3-12 voted on it

And you probably moved here 5 years ago to get state benefits...

No. This is Vermont before 2015 we're talking about. Of course it was racist. Same argument they made about Rebels at SB. Though the flag of choice at SB games was of the Confederate variety.

Hopefully that consultant can spin the proficiency data too.

Good to know, thanks. Makes me even more frustrated they didn't just stick with Ravens 😔

This is so based

Haha no I wish! Haven’t lived in Vermont for a few years now. Miss it dearly tho. Plus it sounds like I’m missing the golden age of rutvegas!

Cool, I've lived in Rutland for 24 years and still do. Maybe you lived in one of the bad neighborhoods, and I sympathize with you on that. Every city in Vermont has bad areas. Pretending Rutland is some extra shithole is ridiculous though.

Nah, still the Raiders.

"Golden Age" is probably a stretch, but a lot of good folks have been trying awfully hard lately. We finally started to get a handle on the opioid problems in the last few years, only to have the state start placing all of their homeless in our vacant hotels, effectively destroying a lot of the progress we made. The state houses all these poor folks with us, but doesn't provide any support systems what-so-ever, so all of their financial burdens beyond housing are put upon our city...most of the crimes being committed in Rutland are by people not originally from here.

My apologies for taking a swipe at you; I should not have assumed. I am sick of folks trashing on Rutland for things that have been beyond our control, and it got the best of me.

You would be surprised at the amount of fellow peers in my school wanted it to change back to ‘Raiders’. It was like 60%.

I wouldn’t at all looking at the test scores and reading the newsletter weekly.

The test scores are probably me, lmao sorry

It’s cool, getting off Reddit during class would help!!

I’m literally not in class. 😃

Just messing, my point was moron parents have moron kids and if you don’t believe me, sit in the bleachers at the football games. Kids hear how important the Raider name is/was but it only matters to the people that peaked in HS or never left Rutland. Don’t peak in high school

Don’t have to tell me about moron parents. The amount of conservative boys in my school is horrible. I get cat called everyday and nobody does anything. The school is just trash point blank.

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When I played school sports in VT we always just used the town name or school name anyway. I went to MSJ and Rutland was our "cross-town rival." I don't recall anyone ever calling them the Raiders. It was just Rutland.

Also, the "green wave" is a dumb name. We all hated it then. We were just MSJ. Reflecting on my experience and all of this hoopla, it seems clear to me that parents are the only ones that actually care about any of this. Any kid claiming they care is just parroting their ignorant parents.

Should have changed it to "opiate addict junkie hillbillies."

These morons should stop trying to trigger the libs and focus on the fact that you can't even go to the Starbucks bathroom in town without asking for the keycode because it needs to be locked so people don't overdose in it. I know that nobody ever leaves the town they live in but the Starbucks in the worst neighborhood of New York City doesn't even need to lock their fucking bathrooms.

I do recall plenty of people using the Raiders nickname. Green Wave seems only used for articles in the Herald; we almost always call MSJ the Mounties.

Jesus Christ I’d totally forgotten the Mounties nickname. Good call. It’s uh… been a while.

r/nottheonion

Worked for the Phillies

SoBu

Hanover (NH) did have a pirate for a mascot (they called their teams the Marauders), and they just changed to a bear. Raiding and pillaging is no longer considered acceptable behavior.

This is fine. It's a school team. I don't know why people invest such emotion into such trivial things.

fair enough, maybe no logo change could have saved it. raping and pillaging isn't a super cool behavior overall I suppose.

in general... who gives a rats ass. bunch of grown ass adults getting riled up over the high school sports team mascot. lmfao. pick up a football, get a fuckin hobby. jesus christ.

Proctor Phantoms or just plain Phantoms here.

I was kind of hoping for Cleveland Baseball Team.

We're not the Nothings from Nowhere, we're the Alma Nothings!

It's just as lame as the Washington football team.

I still don't get why raider's is racist. You don't have to be of any particular culture to be a raider by definition.

Kind of rules

I was hoping for the Cleveland spiders, they blew it!

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Pushing a cart out of Home Depot.

Uh... Rutland has a reputation for a reason.

no, it doesn't. it has a reputation for how it was 30 years ago, maybe. how often do you go to rutland and actually participate in the town?

I'm from northern VT. As little as possible.

yeah, exactly. you've got no idea what you're talking about

The few times I've been recently were definitely not great.