Today I realized that the HS223 Eagle mascot is extremely basic. 

The eagle mascot is not like other schools mascots. For example, on October 29 2024 I went to the City College of New York and I got to see their two mascots walk by. I even took a photo with them. Their mascots had a jersey of the school. And there was more than one Mascot. 

But our school is just an Eagle. 

When you watch sports if the team has a mascot you can see that they are not just a “Animal” they include the team’s jersey with sometimes a hat, hair, or being a crazy color. 

Let’s look at the mascot for the NBA’s Chicago Bulls. The team has a mascot called “Benny the Bull”. Benny the Bull is a red bull which is a unique color for a bull. But the color adds to the mascot by making it cooler than others.

“Benny the Bull” also wears his team’s jersey. This adds to the support for the team. Benny has an orange mohawk which can make the mascot look cooler because it has unnatural hair that not many people have and an unnatural color that you rarely see. In these examples you can see that the mascot actually has cool features about them and they look different from other teams. 

The HS223 mascot  is just a naked regular bald eagle who only shows up after school or walks in classes that are learning and it interrupts the class environment that is going on and changes the subject of discussion. Our mascot should be at games, but hasn’t been there. At least not that I know of.

Something that can be improved is the name of our mascot. “Mr. Eagle” is basic because all it does is add Mr at the front of the animal’s name. It lacks creativity and thought once again our mascot is not a teacher and is probably not an adult. Mr can still be used because Mr is something an identifying man can be called but Mr is most commonly used when they are referring to a teacher or an older married man.

Something that also can be improved is the Eagle’s timing. Mr Eagle happens to roam the hallways every once every 5-6 months and not many kids get to see him, kids who attended 223 from 6th grade to now as freshmen still don’t know what he looks like. Most people don’t know who he is or that we even had a mascot unless he was seen after school or in your class.

The Eagle can also be more bird-like. The Eagle has a creepy facial expression which does not give off a good vibe for a school. The quality of the mascot is so horrible that the Eagle mascot has fur instead of feathers. Is it a mammal or is it a bird? Because whatever it is very uncanny from an Eagle.

One idea from me would be getting a new costume that is better fitting for the Eagle because the Eagle is not a mammal it is a bird of prey, it should have feathers. It should also at least have wings. Its arms look like a structure of the wing but they do not have feathers or a big wingspan like Eagles actually have, since the wings are short it looks like a chicken wing and not an Eagle’s wing.

Also the costume should include a smiling eagle that is way more happy.

A second idea from me is having more vibrant colors to get rid of the creepy vibe and give off the cool and colorful vibe.

Another idea  is adding a jersey to the Eagle because the mascots whole point is to represent the school or have some meaning to it.  The mascot with no clothes does not represent our sports team at all and does not give the student-athletes any motivation.

Also, give the bird some hair. To make the hair correlate with the bird you can give it hair made out of feathers that would be totally cool, awesome and creative. Not many mascots have hair made out of feathers. But of course the hair should not be added if the Eagle is a bald Eagle.

My idea to fix the things for the better would be having Mr Eagle to have a Mrs Eagle and keep the same name. This would make things easier by not having to think of a new name but showing inclusivity between both of the genders. This is also smarter because the female sports teams refer to themselves as “The Lady Eagles”.

And we need these Eagles show up to sporting events in our school instead of the hallways and classes. Mr. Eagle can attend Boys teams games Mrs. Eagle can attend Girls teams games.

Polling some students, many said the Cougar from SBP looks better, the name should be Apex the Eagle or Frye the Eagle. Others said that he should have a cowlick, and have more accessories. Everyone said that the Eagle needs to show up even more often at the school 

The bird is a problem, it needs to be changed and to be seen more.