Two years of work by the Athletic Department, Brookline Superfans, Student Council and Legislature have culminated in the selection of the Spartan Warrior as the new school mascot.

For years, teams at the high school have identified as the Brookline Warriors. While the word “warrior” has been added to team clothing and chants on the sidelines of games, no official image of a warrior has been used for spirit until now.

The school decided it was time to put a face to the name and come up with a school mascot. A mascot is a symbolic figure of inspiration and good luck for teams as well as those not involved in sports, according to the Mascot FAQs provided by Legislature.

“We decided that school spirit was kind of low, and one of the things that caused that was the lack of a mascot, or something that we could all rally behind,” according to junior Nick Karnovsky, a member of Legislature.

Junior Raven Brathwaite, a member of Student Council, agreed that a mascot was needed to boost morale at competitions and other school events.

“It’s important to have a mascot that we can get behind so we have more school spirit at pep rallies and big games,” Brathwaite said.

Students and faculty involved in Legislature and Student Council came up with a long list of possible mascots and then narrowed it to two finalists—the Revolutionary War Hero and the Spartan Warrior.

“One of the major things people were rooting for was the Terracotta Warrior because they are in the atrium, but we quickly realized that could be offensive,” senior Gabby Germanos, a member of Legislature, said.

Other ideas involved animals, but according to Karnovsky, many of the potential animal ideas were too cliché. Germanos said the idea of the turkey to represent the ferocious Brookline fowl was brought up but received negative feedback from coaches.

“Picturing the football team playing against Newton North in the Thanksgiving game and being called the Brookline Turkeys was not very appealing,” Germanos said.

After the choices were narrowed down, students voted in homeroom on May 6. Votes were tallied and the Spartan came out victorious.

Karnovsky said it is important that students understand that the Spartan Warrior is not a logo but a mascot. The official school logo remains the blue and red “BHS.” The Spartan Warrior can be represented by images on clothing, or by students dressing up as Spartans.

“The Spartan will have a big hat with feathers on top, classic look, wearing something similar to a toga,” Karnovsky said.

According to Karnovsky, it was important to come up with a mascot that had never been used to represent the Warrior in the past.

“We wanted to start from the beginning,” Karnovsky said. “We wanted to create something that we could have a pep rally for and we could all muster behind.”

Members of Legislature said there have been a few instances of confusion involving the representation of the Warrior in the past.

“In the 90s, we used to be the Indians and that was an issue because it was racist, and there was a huge overhaul with that,” Germanos said. “But some teams were still using it as a symbol, so we wanted to make sure things got completely eradicated with that.”

The school committee discontinued any symbols related to Native Americans after the girls volleyball team wore Native American headdresses before a playoff game about eight years ago. After this incident, the arrow and feather school logo was banned.

According to Karnovksy, having a decided mascot will hopefully eliminate any discrepancy over what the word “warrior” means.

The new mascot will take effect immediately, and a professional designer will create the Spartan Warrior image. Legislature is planning a pep rally at the end of the year where somebody will dress up as the Spartan Warrior.

“I think it helps foster school spirit because when you are out playing on a field, it’s kind of hard just to rally behind the idea of the letters of BHS,” senior George Gordon said. “Having [a mascot] there who represents and enforces school spirit makes for a better idea of community.”

Sophia Rintell can be contacted at [email protected].