Elissa Stanley
As spring is being looked upon by many of the high school’s athletes, runners, sprinters and throwers take part in indoor track to prepare for the outdoor season. Regular track season (beginning the first week of March) is being looked forward to as girls indoor track has a good amount of athletes preparing.
Track coach Aaron Morris says the team has about 20 sprinters, 15 distance runners and five throwers [shot put and weight throw, not discus due to limited space] training this winter. Events taking place this winter are 60m, 200m, 400m, 800m, 1600m, 3200m, 60H, long jump, high jump, pole vault, shot put and weight throw.
As said, Morris explains that throwers can not participate in some of their real season events. “Some indoor events are a little different during indoor because of the space restrictions” says Morris.
The indoor team competes at Kent State twice, Youngstown State twice, Spire Institute in Geneva, Baldwin Wallace and Mount Union. According to Morris, the season has been going smoothly so far despite the weather. “The season started out really well for us in the first two meets. The third meet was snowed out” says Morris.
Indoor track applies to the outdoor season by “giving us [the team] a chance to do a lot of things in preparation for outdoor track”. “It allows the athletes to prepare their bodies for the rigors of outdoor track. We use the conditioning and weight lifting as a way to limit the danger of injury when the intensity of training picks up in
March” Morris adds.
The indoor season is said to allow coaches to teach athletes how to do events that they may have been interested
in trying, but never done before. The team will work on technique with those that have done specialty events like high jump and hurdles and get a head start on the outdoor season. Also, giving athletes a chance to practice competing, both physically and mentally.
“By the end of May, athletes need to be mentally prepared to compete in big meets, on their own, in a strange environment, surrounded by tons of people in close proximity” says Morris.
Morris says the team holds a few athletes that have been performing particularly well this winter. Junior Aimee Grimm is currently ranked 11th in the state for the 60H as freshman Kirstin Spangler is tied for 23rd in the state for high jump. Senior Katie Hall broke the school record for indoor shot put at only the first indoor meet. The record was initially held by current track coach, Lainie Glasgow.
Grimm believes that training hard in the off season is “extremely beneficial by the time outdoor comes around”. Grimm has competed in indoor track for three years now. This year, Grimm is focusing on the 60m hurdles and the
400m. Grimm’s fastest 60H time is 9.78 seconds, as she hopes to break former hurdler Kayla Thompson’s 60H record of 9.16.
“The indoor season allows us athletes to compete in different events than outdoor allows, some of the races are
shortened and it allows you to work on the starts of the races, which are very important” says Grimm,

Shea Sullivan and Amanda Ostrowski

Francesca Missella
After having Chief Wahoo as their primary logo for 102 years, the Cleveland Indians will no longer be using it due to Major League Baseball pressure. Starting with the 2019 MLB season, the Indians will no longer feature cartoon character, Chief Wahoo, on their uniforms.
The Cleveland Indians were initially called the Cleveland Spiders until 1899 which they then changed to the Cleveland Naps, after their star player Nap Lajoie. According to NBC Sports, after Lajoie departed in 1914 owner Charles Somers asked local baseball writers to come up with a new name.
The name Indians and the logo came about because then star player Louis Sockalexis is believed to be the first Native American in the MLB. Originally the logo was used to honor Native Americans and the rich history of them in Northeast Ohio not with the purpose of disrespecting.
“I do not believe that the Indians should be changed because it’s been around for so long and I feel people are reading into why the logo was made and not the true reason,” senior Michaela Light said.
Many have criticized the logo as a sign of racism because the cartoon character features what some call a ‘Stereotypical American’ Indian face. According to USA Today, every year since the 1990’s playoff runs, groups of Native Americans have protested outside the stadium before the home opener in hopes getting Chief Wahoo permanently removed.
In 2014 the Tribe have began using a block “C” as their logo more often by shifting it as the primary cap logo and displaying it around the ballpark. In Aug. 2016, Indians managment released that they had no plans to change the logo and found it not disrespectful to Native Americans.
“ I do feel the logo should be changed because so many people feel offended and have protested for years over the logo. I still was and will be an Indians fan regardless of the logo,” Sophomore Hannah Williams said.
Major League Baseball then publicly stated they would not force the Indians to change their name since it has been in use for 100 years. National criticism did not occur until Oct.2016, when the Indians had a showdown with the Toronto Blue Jays for the American League Championship Series and the World Series.
During the American League championship, the city of Toronto tried to file an appeal for the Indians to remove the team name and logo patches from their jerseys to not be shown on Canadian TV. Two days after the devastating World Series game 7 loss to the Chicago Cubs, Major League Baseball released that they would look into the logo and hold a meeting to discuss if changes needed to be made.
Ultimately, pressure on management from the MLB heightened when Cleveland was named the host city for the 2019 All-Star Game. Many believe if Cleveland had never won the bid for the All-Star game the logo would never have changed. The MLB feared if the logo still represented the team they would lose people from attending the most popular game of the year and cause the loss of millions of dollars.
While many believe this is the end of the road for Chief Wahoo, they are completely wrong. MLB is not all for the change after allowing the ball to continue selling merchandise featuring the mascot in Northeast Ohio. This is in order for the MLB and the Indians to keep ownership of the trademark. In many ways Chief Wahoo will never disappear and will forever be a part of Cleveland history.

By Lauren Rayman

    The girl’s track team got rained out while facing Wadsworth on Tuesday, April 3. They went back to the Grizzly Stadium to finish the meet on Thurs, April 12.

   “I was happy at first because it was so cold and the weather was gross, but now I wish it wasn’t cancelled because they were on spring break and had a lot of girls missing so we had a better chance of winning,” captain Maddie Merlene said.

    At the first attempt of the meet on April 3, the 4×800 meter relay, 100 meter hurdles and the 100 meter dash had been completed. Freshman Jordan Lyle had already competed in the 100 hurdles.

    “I think I did better today than last week because the weather and the vibes were a lot better than last Tuesday,” Lyle said.

    Despite being ready to run in the poor conditions of the meet last week, the team agrees that running this week was better for the team all around.

    “I don’t think it messed with us. If anything, it gave us more time to practice and prepare for our next meet,” Merlene said.

    Lyle believes that the meet being cancelled last week and rescheduled for this week was better not only because of the weather but because the girls had a bigger team this week.

    Many girls who were injured and unable to run last week had recovered and were able to compete this week.

    These are just some of the benefits of the meet last week being cancelled due to weather conditions, but there are also cons about it being this week.

    “We had to drive 45 minutes again to Wadsworth, and all of their girls came back from spring break, and they were able to do all of their field events from the start, when many of our girls had to do their field events when it was cold and hard to do anything,” Merlene said.

    This was also the second meet of the week for the team and some athletes will be competing at the Walsh Relays at Walsh Jesuit High School on Saturday.

    The girls track team has two home meets next week. They will face Twinsburg on April 17 and Hudson on April 19 at senior night.