Riverside Secondary School has announced a new team name.
The school has announced "Stingers" as the new team name, replacing Rebels.
The Greater Essex County District School Board announced in February that the team name 'Rebels' would be retired.
The board said the reason behind the change was to show their commitment to dismantling all forms of systemic racism and oppression to create safe, caring and inclusive learning and working environments for all staff and students.
The GECDSB also stated that the Rebel name and related imagery were associated with white supremacy, anti-Black racism, hate and harm.
Photo courtesy: Riverside Stingers YouTube page
However, some alumni are disappointed with the name change. Albert Mady was a Riverside student in the 1970's and calls the new name silly.
He says the Rebel name was never presented in a bad light, and students had pride in being a Rebel.
"The Rebel name was just a kind of go for it, and win, but you know we were athletes. I was a wrestler at Riverside, you know we had pride in that name, 'we're Rebels, get out there and do it', that's how we thought of it."
He believes alumni should have been spoken to about the name change.
"They should've approached alumni to see if we could come up with a name that would suit the old Riverside 'go for it' attitude."
Mady adds by changing the name to Stingers, it erases the past and history of the Riverside Rebels.
"And hiding it from future Riverside students, I believe it's harmful in a way. And, I don't really like the erasing of the history. We should know about it, good, bad, or indifferent, we should know about it, then we can make our own decisions."
50 suggestions for a new team name were submitted earlier this year. From there it was narrowed down to a list of 10. Four presentations were made to staff, students, parents, and alumni before Stingers was chosen.
"Buzz" is the new name of the school's mascot and the team colours will remain black and gold.
-with files from AM800's Rob Hindi