About a year ago, there was talk that the Fairhope High Pirates should change their mascot nickname.

Being a former FHS Pirate, I thought, ‘sacrilege,’ of course. Being a former Daphne Junior High student-athlete, however, the idea of team names mingled with local history and recent events has caused me to think a little more about mascot metaphysics.

The Daphne address that’s now home to W. J. Carroll Intermediate School was once the campus of Baldwin County Training School. It was the home of the Wolverines until the spring of 1970. For more than 40 years it had been an all-black 1-12 school.

In 1970 a federal court order required that all-black and all-white public schools integrate into one system. That took place at BCTS on Main Street and along with it, the integration or combination of the Black & Gold Trojans and the Purple & White Wolverines.

I was a freshman coming from Christ The King Catholic that fall where racial integration was not new, but girls and boys still sat on separate sides of the center aisle during mass. So I was neutral. Neither a Trojan nor a Wolverine.

I’m sure like most of my classmates and teammates at the all-new Daphne Jr. High, I didn’t realize it to be a history-making year. But it was. The end of one era, the beginning of another. Not only locally, but across the country two schools, two teams, had to learn, work and play as one. After that freshman year, all public high school students from the Eastern Shore went to Fairhope High.

I didn’t think about it or feel anything significant about 1970-71 then. There were more important things like who was going steady with whom, which teachers to avoid and of course the big jump to ‘real’ high school the next year. But today there is a historic marker near the front of W. J. Carroll to remind us of more weighty matters — that when worlds collide, worlds change.

I don’t think a mascot name should necessarily have a purpose or message. It’s an image, a symbol for a school or community to rally around. But if a symbol can be more self-defining, maybe it should be. In other words, the Trojan name reflects only half the Daphne I grew up in.

When growth on the Eastern Shore led to the beginning of Daphne High School 20 years later, I’m sure some thought went into the nickname selection. Continuing the Trojan name was an obvious choice but it’s not the whole Daphne story. The color purple was passed along with the gold but does the name, as is, ring true to how those colors came together?

That fall, almost 40 years ago, we had a pretty good football team. Vernell Snowden was our quarterback. Beneath our black-and-white jerseys, we were black-and-white pieces on a gridiron chess board, but we moved together toward a common goal. Our play wasn’t always golden, but our overall education gleamed brighter for the effort.

Vernell passed away just over a year ago. He was a good student, had a great smile, a classy team-first attitude and an undisputed, hall-of-fame ‘Fro. Most of all, he was a friend to all and he had a knack for finding harmony in any situation.

I don’t know if it’s best to ever change or amend a name, but often when two people become one and start a future together, they combine their names. Maybe that’s why God invented hyphens.

This Saturday, former DHS quarterback, Pat White will represent my hometown in the Senior Bowl. His mom was a classmate of mine at DJrH and he is the great-nephew of one of the most beloved coaches to serve at BCTS and later at Fairhope, Bailey Yelding, Jr. It seems the legacy of the Wolverines is all around and yet not fully noted. When Daphne won the 6A state championship in football, the most valuable player was Lee Baker. His father Alfred, who otherwise would have played for the freshman Wolverines, was my teammate in 1970.

That year we didn’t know what we were. Even our yearbook photo is labeled plainly, Daphne Football, ‘70. Were we Trojans? Wolverines? Trojarines? Wolverjans? Tro-Woes? No one asked us. I wish we could ask Vernell. But I think I know his answer: “We were a team, man. We were one special team.”

We were that and we were the first representatives of a new, more united team and town. Sometimes I wish that uniting of communities and spirit could be commemorated and displayed more visibly. Black and White, Purple and Gold. All the colors are there, but not all the names.

It was only junior high and we were simply that team from Daphne and that seemed to be enough — back then. But I realize now we were not just a team from Daphne. In our hearts, in our souls and in our history, we were and always will be the Trojan-Wolverines. I wish it had said so on our sleeves.

– Tony Whitehead is a staff writer for Gulf Coast Newspapers.

Contact him by e-mail at : twhitehead@gulfcoastnewspapers.com