Return of the Wellesley Red Raiders!

Back in the 1990s the Wellesley public school teams dropped “Red” from the “Red Raiders” name their sports teams once used out of sensitivity to Native Americans.  Other schools, such as Colgate University, did likewise, and even Natick recently ditched Redmen in favor of Red and Blue, and then Red Hawks. Wellesley once used a Native American’s profile for its logo/mascot,

though in the early ’90s switched the meaning of Raider to a pirate, which explains why this criminal character now gets to represent WHS athletes.

Anyway, you might be interested to know that the Wellesley Red Raider name lives on in youth sports in town. This is true both in youth soccer and Little League baseball, the latter of which this fall instead of going with pro team names has switched to big college team names for a bit of variety. One boys fall baseball team is called the Texas Tech Red Raiders, but fear not — there should be no controversy here: this Red Raider is a Zorro-like guy wearing a mask and cape, and riding a horse.