SAUGUS — The Saugus Sachems are once again under fire.
On Tuesday, the Advertiser published a letter by 2005 Saugus High School graduate Kevin Studley titled “I am not a Sachem, and neither are you.”
In it, Studley referred to the town’s controversial mascot as a symbol of “misconstrued … identity and heritage.”
The letter sparked a town-wide outcry, moving many to take to social media to defend the town’s depiction of a Sachem — a word meaning “chief” used by multiple Indigenous tribes throughout the Northeast — as its mascot.
Among those defending its use is Board of Selectmen Chair Anthony Cogliano, who said the Sachem logo represents Saugus history.
“People are very fond of the logo and are very proud of our tradition in Saugus,” he said. “It’s more than a logo for a high school. It’s everything. It’s our street signs, it’s our town seal.”
He added that he didn’t think changing the mascot would be a productive way to address past issues of racism.
“Where do you draw the line if someone is offended by something? I’m not one who believes that tearing down the past will ever make a better future,” he said. “I understand people’s position, I just think the past is the past.
“I think we live in the greatest country in the world — certainly with flaws, we can make it better — but we don’t have to eliminate the past to accomplish that.”
On Wednesday, Cogliano posted to Facebook asking constituents for their input. Clearly demonstrating Saugonians’ strong feelings on the issue, the post drew nearly 400 comments by the next evening.
Also showing his support for the Sachem logo online was School Committee member John Hatch, who changed his Facebook profile picture late last month to that of the mascot alongside the caption: “I am a proud SHS Sachem, and try to live up to the true meaning every day.”
Hatch later said he’d felt compelled to share his stance publicly after hearing from residents who were unhappy with the mascot’s multi-story display on the side of the town’s new middle-high school.
“That offends me,” he said. “I go back to my jock roots, and ever since I started playing Pop Warner at 5 years old … it was never about being disrespectful. It was always, to me, a sign of respect and about honoring our Native American heritage.”
He added that the image evokes powerful emotions in many Saugonians who grew up feeling strong ties to their hometown sports teams.
“For someone to say that we’re being disrespectful or that we should get rid of it as our mascot- I mean, I don’t look at it as a mascot,” he said. “A mascot is a duck or a badger, things like that. Those are mascots. This means something more to me, and I can tell you for a fact that anybody who has ever played sports out of the high school, or who was part of the band or the drama program, it’s not about a mascot. It’s about honoring our Native American heritage, and it’s a sign of respect.
“It’s not about anything else, but people have turned it into something other than it is.”
However, many of the town’s younger residents say they feel differently.
Zena Osman, currently a student at George Washington University in D.C., graduated from Saugus High School in 2018.
Despite having worn the Sachem logo proudly during her time at SHS, Osman said she’s since learned more about the U.S.’s complicated history when it comes to using symbols and signage of Native tribes to represent modern-day organizations, which some research has found can cause harm by playing into racial stereotyping.
“First and foremost, I believe this shouldn’t be a matter of opinion. That is, either my opinion or the opinion of generations of white Italians who have moved to this town,” she said. “I understand people deeply connect to this town on an emotional level, and before I graduated from Saugus High School in 2018, I won’t deny I was one of them. I wore the Sachem on my Saugus clothes and didn’t ever question what gave me the entitlement to wear the symbol.”
She said that it was only once she left Saugus to pursue her college education that she was exposed to new ideas that caused her to reexamine the relationship she had to her hometown mascot.
“A lot of people from Saugus might say college ‘radicalizes’ us, but the truth is, I left this town and met people from all over the country who are from different walks of life and cultures and it opened my mind and educated me on this nation’s history, as well as solidified to me how disrespectful it is to appropriate someone else’s culture.
“Europeans didn’t settle in this town, they eradicated its culture.”
The American Psychological Association has previously called for the immediate retirement of all Native mascots, symbols, images by schools, colleges, universities, athletic teams, and organizations after research showed such symbols had negative effects on not only Native American students, but student bodies as a whole.
When asked what mascot she might like to see Saugus embrace in the future, Osman suggested an ironworker.
“Saugus has a well-known history of ironworkers,” she said.
Nicole Orent, also a 2018 graduate of Saugus High School, agreed with Osman that the Sachem mascot should be replaced.
“It seems like the biggest fear residents have is that changing our mascot will erase our town’s history and pride, but a 1995 Saugus High School yearbook will always show the Sachem,” the UMass Amherst student said. “Our past is unchangeable, but we have the ability to make our future brighter.”
She later added: “If our town’s pride was truly as strong as residents claim it is, wouldn’t it transcend a mascot?”
