Anatomy of a Mascot

Students at the storied Radnor High said their team symbol, the Red Raider, was racist and vowed to change it. Alumni fought back with surprising vehemence.

RADNOR, Pa. — This affluent 340-year-old township of 31,000 residents on the Main Line has long been a bastion of gentility and geniality. “The Philadelphia Story,” that arch drawing-room comedy starring Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn, was set in Radnor, and its public high school served as the inspiration for Rydell High in the film version of “Grease,” directed by a 1964 graduate, Randal Kleiser. During the last year, however, a battle has been waged over the high school’s mascot: a Native American warrior known as the Radnor Red Raider. Some alumni argue that there is nothing offensive about the name or the Native American imagery, adopted in the mid-1960s in honor of a beloved coach, Emerson Metoxen, of the Oneida Tribe. “Red” refers to the school’s colors: red and white, meant to distinguish its teams from its Central League opponents, the Ridley Green Raiders.