Attend any function, game, or sporting event at Southeast Missouri State and you’ll be greeted, hugged, and otherwise entertained by an oversized raptor, Rowdy the Redhawk, our cheerleading mascot. But it wasn’t always Rowdy that adorned baseball caps, t-shirts, and other Southeast merch. In fact, for over 80 years, our biggest cheerleader was variously a chieftain, princess, thunderbird, and a goofy-looking guy named “SEMO Red.”
Since at least 1914, we were known as the “Indians.” This indigenous iconography began with the Sagamore yearbook, later the Capaha Arrow, and by the 1920s was extended to the sports teams at Southeast. It was not until after the 1940s, however, that “Big Chief Sagamore” (the Algonquin term for leader or chieftain) would officially be recognized as the university’s mascot, later accompanied by “Princess Otahki.” Both were portrayed by students dressed in full Native American regalia.
This lasted until the mid-1980s, when universities across the nation began to question the use of First Nations people as mascots. After Chief Sagamore retired in 1985, his short-lived replacement “SEMO Red” drew mixed reviews from fans and alumni for looking like a redheaded “country bumpkin.” Red soon disappeared, followed briefly by a Thunderbird in 1989. By 1996 President Dobbins solicited ideas for a new mascot and after passing on such dandies as the Fighting Okra and Ninja Squirrels, Rowdy the Redhawk hatched at a basketball game against Austin Peay on January 22, 2005.
