Replacing “Redskins”: An Add-Hawk Solution

We Get It; You’re “Hawks” Now

The University of North Dakota finally replaced its Fighting Sioux with Fighting Hawks in November 2015 (timeline here), just two days after Goshen High School (Goshen, Ind.) replaced Redskins with Redhawks, so we thought this would be a good time to revisit the many teams that have covered up a history of Native American mascots with Hawks of one shade or another. I coined to term “add -Hawk solution” to describe this convention in my latest edition of Naming Rites.
   For each institution, we provide the older team name and the intentionally less-controversial -Hawk version, along with the year of the transition in parentheses. (The college teams are discussed in more detail in Naming Rites.)

Colleges and Universities:
• Dickinson State University: Savages > Blue Hawks (1973)
• Montclair State University: Indians > Red Hawks (1989)
• Ripon College: Redmen/Lady Reds > Red Hawks (1994)
• Hartwick College: Warriors > Hawks (1994)
• UMass-Lowell: Chiefs > River Hawks (1994)
• Miami University (Ohio): Redskins > Red Hawks (1997) (The Warriors at Miami's Middletown campus switched to Thunder Hawks at around the same time.)
• Seattle University: Chieftains > Redhawks (2000)
• Martin Methodist College: Indians > Redhawks (2002)
• Southeast Missouri State University: Indians > Redhawks (2004)
• Stonehill College: Chieftains > Skyhawks (2005)
• Chowan University: Braves > Hawks (2006)
• University of Louisiana at Monroe: Indians > Warhawks (2006)
• Indiana University of Pennsylvania: Indians > Crimson Hawks (2006)
• Northeastern State University: Redmen > RiverHawks (2007)
• McMurry University: Indians > War Hawks (2011)
• Roberts Wesleyan College: Raiders > Redhawks (2012)
• Lake Michigan College: Indians > Red Hawks (2012)
• University of North Dakota: Fighting Sioux (dropped 2012) > Fighting Hawks (2015)


Goshen [Ind.] High School replaced its Redskins with RedHawks (with this attending iconography) on 16 November 2015, two days before University of North Dakota teams became Fighting Hawks. (Image from Goshen Community Schools.)

High Schools:
There are probably a million more cases of recently hatched RedHawks and Red Hawks in the high school ranks, but here are the ones we found with the intergoogle:
• Seneca High School (Louisville, Ky.): Redskins > RedHawks (1997)
• Naperville High School (Naperville, Ill.): Redskins > Redhawks (1992)
• Marist High School (Chicago, Ill.): Redskins > RedHawks (1997)
• Mountain Empire High School (Pine Valley, Calif.): Redskins > RedHawks (1997)
• Frontier Regional [High] School (South Deerfield, Mass.): Redskins > Redhawks (1997)
• Milton High School (Milton, Wisconsin): Redmen > Red Hawks (1999)
• Hiawatha High School (Hiawatha, Kan.): Redskins > Red Hawks (2001)
• Parsippany High School (Troy Hills, N.J.): Redskins > Red Hawks (2001)
• Marshall High School (Marshall, Mich.): Redskins > Redhawks (2005)
• Colusa High School (Colusa, Calif.): Redskins > RedHawks (2012)
• Natick High School (Natick, Mass.): Redmen > Redhawks (2012)
• Port Townshend High School (Port Townshend, Wash.): Redskins > Redhawks (2013)
• Bedford Road Collegiate School (Saskatoon, Sask.): Redmen > Redhawks (2014)
• Western Canada High School (Calgary, Alta.): Redmen > Redhawks (2014)
• Vallejo High School (Vallejo, Calif.): Apaches > Redhawks (2014)
• Goshen High School (Goshen, Ind.): Redskins > Redhawks (2015)
• Estelline High School (Estelline, S.D.): Redmen > Redhawks (2018)
• Manchester High School (Manchester, Conn.): Indians > Red Hawks (2019)
• Killingly High School (Killingly, Conn.): Redmen > Red Hawks (2019)
• Nyack High School (Rockland Co., N.Y.): Indians > RedHawks (2020)
• La Veta High School (La Veta, Colorado): Redskins > RedHawks (2021)
• La Crosse Central High School (La Crosse, Wisconsin): Red Raiders > RedHawks (2021)
• Farmington High School (Farmington, Conn.): Indians > River Hawks (2021)
• Bountiful High School (Bountiful, Utah): Braves > Redhawks (2021)
• Barnstable High School (Barnstable, Masachusetts): Red Raiders > RedHawks (2021)
• Union High School (Tulsa, Okla.): Redskins > Redhawks (2021)
• Calaveras High School (San Andreas, Calif.): Redskins > Red Hawks (2022)
• Saranac High School (Saranac, Mich.): Redskins > Red Hawks (2022)
• Montrose High School (Montrose, Co.): Indians > Red Hawks (2022)
• Touchet High School (Touchet, Wash.): Indians > Redhawks (2022)
• Wichita North High School (Wichita, Kan.): Redskins > RedHawks (2022)
• Amesbury High School (Amesbury, Ma.): Indians > Red Hawks (2022)
• Sauquoit Valley Central School District (Sauquoit, New York): Indians > Red Hawks (2023)
• Groton Central School District (Groton, New York): Indians > Red Hawks (2024)
• Iroquois Central School District (Buffalo, New York): Chiefs > Red Hawks (2024)
• Camden-Frontier High School (Camden, Michigan): Redskins > RedHawks (2024)

Changed Imagery, Same Name:
These mascots and emblems have been changed to hawks to project an innocence, but the names are essentially unchanged:
• Southern Oregon University’s Red Raiders cut the “Red” out and dropped all Native American notions in 1980 in favor of a red-tailed hawk mascot.
• The Red Raiders at Central Lakes College were just Raiders by 1989 and now have a mascot that’s a … wait for it … hawk.
• The California State University–Stanislaus Warriors traded Indian mascots for a “warrior hawk” in 1999 and then a classical foot soldier in 2005.
• The West Burlington campus of Iowa’s Southeastern Community College is on ground fought for in the Black Hawk War. It retained “Blackhawks” in 2002 but moved from Native American tokens to dark-colored raptors—that is, black hawks.
• You might think the Raiders at Seminole State College of Florida refer to Seminole warriors, but hawk mascots deflect such intuition.

Excerpt from Naming Rites:
“[O]nly members of federally recognized tribes can possess feathers or other parts of certain raptors. Even then, a license is required and the display of such relics is restricted to religious and spiritual ceremonies. That Eagle Feather Law aims to protect the bald eagle, golden eagle, and red-tailed hawk, so newly named Eagles and RedHawks don’t stray as far as they might from Native American totems.”

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Click here to return to the Naming Rites Blog table of contents. Glenn Arthur Pierce is the author of Naming Rites: A Biographical History of North American Team Names, now available at Amazon.com. (Click “Read Excerpt” here.)
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