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My alma mater's mascot is the Redskins. It always has been and always will be. It is one of only four high schools in California with this so-called "offensive" mascot name. However, it's a name we share with the Washington, DC football team and countless other less well-known teams around the country.

Many other schools have succumbed to political correctness and changed their mascot to something more mundane. Not just Redskins, but Chiefs and Indians are now things like Cardinals or Teddy Bearss. There was even legislation a few years ago trying to force schools like mine to drop our offensive mascot name. Thankfully, it did not pass.

My hometown, Chowchilla, CA, was named for the Chauchile Indians. These were fierce warriors. I don't think too many people in Chowchilla are proud of that, and I think that includes the supposedly misguided souls who, early in the 20th century, decided to name the town and the high school's mascot after these Indians. They wanted to honor the town's first settlers, and wanted to honor their fiercly competitive spirit. It was unfortunate that the first settlers chose to do so by killing other people. It is good that today's Redskins are instead competitive on the playing field, and in academics.

I am sure, even if political correctness had not gone overboard, people would not have named the team Redskins today. Redskin was used as derogatory term, sort of like a word for African-Americans that has evolved to profanity. We would have gone with Indians or Chiefs had the school been named within my lifetime.

But with our school having been open for almost 100 years, the history of the Chowchilla Redskins is as important as the history of the Chauchile Indians. Some families have had four generations graduate from the high school, all of them proud to be Redskins. How devastating it would be if members of those families who are still growing up in Chowchilla were told they had to be something else?

I have only a small percentage of Native American blood, but I believe the full-blooded natives I attended high school with were just as proud to be Redskins as I was. One of them tried out for the school's mascot, Reddy Redskin. She was the best Reddy Redskin I remember the school ever having. I have talked with her recently, and she is still a an exuberant, confident woman. Obviously, being both a Native American and a Redskin did nothing to damage her psyche,

Likewise, for young boys, it was quite the honor to be chosen as Tommy Hawk in

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