Editor: With regards to the issue of changing the CCHS name from Crusaders, as someone who not only played on multiple championship teams wearing Crusader colours, I was also a head coach for all of the basketball teams at one point or other for over 10 years.
Not once in over 15 years of involvement did I ever hear a teammate, coach, opposing player, fan, parent or player wonder if “Crusader” was some kind of offensive name.
As a former college basketball official, I’ve also been in hundreds of gyms and never wondered whether “Crusader” was possibly offensive, as there are plenty of high schools and colleges all over western Canada that proudly have the same name.
There are certainly some names that were derived from the past that warrant another look (most recently Western Canada High School in Calgary changing from Redmen to RedHawks in the past couple years). But this isn’t one of them.
I would suggest if Crusader offends you then perhaps the name Canmore should also be changed.
It is after all taken from the name of a Scottish town and I imagine in this day and age there may be some proud Scotsmen (and women) who could be offended.
What makes me most upset is that it’s the leadership who are promoting this.
If the leaders of the school (as well as the school board) don’t have the wider experience and wisdom that they’re supposed to be bringing to the table when it comes to educating our youth, then I really worry for the future.
This is the absolute wrong hill to be having a battle on.
Chris Pelletier,
Calgary
