The team mascot for Ossining schools used to be the Indian. Then the squishy wimp-ocracy, i.e. the state Education Department, shoved a politically correct edict down the school district’s throat and the mascot was changed to RiverHawk.

Now, it’s changed again. As we’ve reported at lohud.com and in The Journal News it’s now the “O,” short for Ossining.

When I wrote about this in today’s paper, I mentioned that whenever the mascot issue comes up in Ossining, the discussion invariably turns to Sing Sing Prison and tongue-in-cheek suggestions for team names that are thematically linked to the fabled “Big House.” I listed a few of them… “The Convicts,” “The Executioners,” etc.

Of course, the prison theme is only laughed at. But there is a precedent for it.

It seems that back around 1910, the Yuma Union High School in Arizona took over the vacated buildings of the territorial prison which was moved to another location. The high school was quartered in the old jail for four years. When the school’s football team played Phoenix, the rivals derisively called them “criminals.”

Yuma won the game and the name “criminals” became a source of pride and was kept. They shortened it to “Crims” and adopted a mascot image of a tough-looking convict. The student store is called the “Cell Block.”

And as for the sensitive and politically correct—guess what? There’s a team mascot at Northern Colorado University called the “Fighting Whities.” The team mascot is a middle-aged white guy. The team slogan is “Everythang’s gonna be all white!”

If that doesn’t upset you, then the “Indians” shouldn’t upset you either.