Director pushes for new college mascot

A mascot could be selected this semester to represent this college, particularly as a character dressed up at athletic events.

But the student life director doesn't want it to be a ranger.

During a Presidents Roundtable meeting Feb. 25, Tyler Archer, assistant coordinator of student leadership and activities, announced that the Student Government Association was changing the college mascot and each club would need to choose two designs.

The designs would be reviewed in a meeting later in the semester, and the clubs would choose the top two for final vote, she said.

"Student organizations are not changing the mascot but are creating one because the college dropped the ranger as a mascot before I began working here," student life Director Jorge Posadas said in an interview Feb. 8.

Posadas said that when he started work here in summer 2006, he "was specifically told by administration that the school doesn't have a mascot. The ranger mascot is something from history," he said. "The task to create a new mascot is because of our growth in the sports program and the need for students to increase school spirit."

"My understanding was historically the ranger, the Texas Rangers specifically, while they played an important role in our history in maintaining law and order in the West and the Southwest, their largest role is that they were a vigilante group and that their deeds and their actions were perhaps not in the best interest of the community that we currently serve," Posadas said.

"Because of that history, of course, I didn't make this decision, but my assumption, when I look at the ranger … there's trucks, there's the rangers from the military, all wonderful things, a great student newspaper as a mascot. Because of the specific makeup of our students, it's probably not the most appropriate," Posadas said.

"It may offend quite a few people; however, it's not offending our country, but at San Antonio College maybe there might be a moment of pause. You know, again, it's about cheering on the sports teams and school spirit," Posadas said.

"We're not the Rangers. We don't have a mascot," he said, noting he has instructed students to cheer "Go, SAC" rather than cheering on The Rangers as the teams have been referred to for years. Uniforms have been change to eliminate Rangers.

President Robert Zeigler isn't so sure the college needs a new mascot. "I told Student Government I wasn't interested in revisiting the whole mascot thing," he said Feb. 18.

On Wednesday, Zeigler said, "If we got a new design for a mascot, it would first have to go through the college administrators and the Student Government and that could take several weeks or months."

There is artwork of a cowboy with the word "Rangers" surrounding it in the floor of Gym 1 of Candler Physical Education Center.

It cannot be confirmed if the artwork is an actual mascot that once represented the school. The earliest yearbook that the artwork appears in is 1961.

"Student Government was not the one that decided the mascot needed to be changed," Student Government Asso-ciation President Julianne Cantu said Feb. 25.

Posadas said Wednesday, "We asked Student Government if they had any ideas about a new mascot, and they said they thought we already had one."

Cantu said, "We do not have any deadline. No one has approached the SGA and asked us for our opinion. "I know that when the mascot change was brought up in previous years, that SGA suggested changing the mascot to a jackalope," she said.

A jackalope is an imaginary animal that's part jackrabbit and part antelope.

Posadas said the mascot is going to be a live character, with a person wearing a costume.

He said he hopes to have a mascot selected soon after spring break.

Mascots have played a role in this college's history, which began in 1925.

The Junior Cowboy Club was established in 1931 to promote debating.

In its first few years, the club was composed entirely of men. The club decided to choose two women as their mascot to represent them for the year at social events and outings, according to yearbook archives of 1931-1946.

"The two girls that were chosen as mascots were thought to be the prettiest and most popular girls. They would represent the club for the year," Jerome Weynand said Feb. 20.

Weynand, a 1948 graduate of this college and former district administrator, is author of "San Antonio College: In the Beginning … 1925-1956," a history of the college. "I can remember back to when I was a Marine with my buddies, and we would hate to see it changed; we loved the ranger as a mascot," Weynand said.

The college's student newspaper, The Ranger, was established on March 25, 1926, six months after the college opened. The name of the paper evolved from the Junior Ranger, to Jaysee Ranger, and eventually to The Ranger.

Posadas raised the mascot discussion in 2007. An article published in The Ranger on April 13, 2007, reported, "Student Government President Francesca DiTroia and student life Director Jorge Posadas approached President Robert Zeigler with the idea of changing the mascot during a student government meeting April 2."