Tag Archives: wendell wilkie

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Messed-Up Mascots

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Today’s post comes from perennial sophomore Bubby Spamden at Wendell Wilkie High School.

Hey Mr. C.,

I think it’s really cool that 700 people marched to the Metrodome the other night to protest the name of the National Football League team from Washington, D.C. The Vikings must have been kind of disappointed to see such a big crowd coming, only to find out they weren’t actually interested in tickets.

Me and my buddies have promised never to use the name of that Washington team again! We’re going to call them “The Washington Awkwards” from now on, ’cause that’s how it feels when we see their logo and all their uncomfortable-looking merchandise and stuff.

I hope they pick a new mascot soon.

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It makes me think of the ordeal we went through at Wendell Wilkie High School with our team name, which was “The Contenders”, because Wilkie was the Republican nominee for president against Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1940 and he almost won (NOT).

A lot of students don’t like “The Contenders” as a team name because it just sounds, you know, mediocre. I mean, there’s this feeling of trying your best, but kind of falling short. So the Young Republicans Club got on this kick to change the name to “The Nominees”, because that’s the contest that he actually won – in the Republican Party.

But then the Tea Party Republican Club found out that Wilkie was actually a Democrat before he was a Republican and became an emissary for FDR after losing to him, and wrote a book called “One World” and they felt so disappointed they started to push to change the name of the school to Ayn Rand High with a team called “The Objectivists.”

Just when that idea started to get some traction, the Students Hating All Military Madness In Every Sense (SHAMMIES) found out about Wilkie’s “One World” book and started to agitate for keeping Wilkie’s name on the school and calling the team “The Peacemakers.” But that idea got crushed pretty fast by the administration because (people say) Coach Gittum let them know he’d have nothing to do with it.

Then the Irony Club had to get into the act. They thought our team should be called “The Losers” because that’s what Wendell Wilkie is known for, after all. There were almost enough votes to get a resolution on that through the student council, but at the last minute a splinter group thought “The Failures” would be even more ironic, and they couldn’t keep their coalition together.

Finally a group of moderates in the Honorable Compromise Club pushed to change our team name to “The Statesmen,” which caught on with a lot of people as a less-bad option than all the other ones that were being discussed, and it passed the student council on a narrow, but statesman-like, vote.

But when it got to the Board of Education they threw out the whole idea because it would cost way too much to change all the school signage and letterhead and buy new athletic jerseys and stuff. So we’re still The Wilkie Contenders. Contenders who fell short of our goal! But they complimented us on our process and they hoped we learned something about democracy, which of course we did!

It sure burns up a lot of energy!

Your Pal,
Bubby

What was your Big Cause in High School?

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Whither Wendell Willkie?

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Here’s a guest post from Willkie High School’s perennial sophomore Bubby Spamden.

Hey Mr. C.,

So we had this all school assembly because February 18th is Wendell Willkie’s birthday, and I got to give the Willke Day speech because I’ve been a sophomore, like, forever, and they’ve never asked me. Now that the older teachers are getting pretty clear signals that they’re going to get set out at the curb the next time there’s a downsizing, a couple of them pressured principal Peepers to give me a shot. I think hearing me speak to the whole school was on somebody’s bucket list. So anyway, here’s my speech:

Parents, Administrators and Fellow Students,

Today we honor Mr. Wendell Willkie, our school’s namesake.
He was a famous loser. He ran for president and lost to Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 1940 election, just before the United States got into World War II.

So our man Willkie was the almost-President of the country that won the biggest war the world has ever seen. He lost an ocean of future textbook ink, he lost having his own presidential library, he lost a starring role in all those History Channel documentaries, and he lost having a Wilkie Monument on the National Mall.

What did he get as a consolation prize? He got our high school. That’s it. And when you think about it, that’s a pretty big burden for us to carry.

Wendell Willkie was a moderate Republican, a weird kind of creature not quite as ancient and disappeared as a Stegosaurus, but close. For some reason they couldn’t reproduce.

But coming up short is cool today. Career counselors say our failures make us great. The key is what you do AFTER you lose. Wendell Willkie recovered by taking a job with the man who beat him. That’s right – Roosevelt hired Willkie to travel around the world as his personal representative. How’s that for bouncing back? You get to have the perks of a president without the responsibility – not a bad rebound.

And he didn’t give up, at least not in his mind! Willkie still wanted to be President, and maybe King of the World, too. There’s a pretty reliable account that during a State visit to Asia, Willkie dallied with Madame Chiang Kai-shek. She reportedly told a confidant later that she thought she and Willkie could take over the planet together. She’d run Asia and he’d take the Western world.

Ruler of Earth in cahoots with a temptress from the mysterious East. Not a bad daydream for a guy from Elwood, Indiana.

One other cool thing about Willkie – he had a heart attack on a train, and died because he wouldn’t get off to seek help. The story is that he wanted to get back home to his own doctor. A true Republican hero at the end – resisting One Size Fits All health care. And I can think of just one other famous American who died of a heart attack on a train – Fats Waller.

Pretty good company for a really big loser. First in Failure! That’s our Willkie!

I thought this was a decent speech, but they stopped me when I got to the line “He was a famous loser”, turned off my microphone, sent everyone back to class and gave me extra detention for being inappropriate. In the best Willke tradition, I failed big on a really big stage. Pretty good tribute, eh?

Who would you choose as your partner to take over and rule the world?