Chloe Flynn
Most high schools in the U.S. have a person who dresses up in a mascot costume to show school spirit and hype up fans at a school event. Now, you might be asking yourself, “well if so many high schools have a mascot costume, why doesn’t Central?” Here’s the strange part… we do! However, most students don’t know what happened to our beloved mascot. That’s what we’re trying to figure out: the truth of what happened to Max the Maroon.
You might be wondering, “Max? Who’s Max?” Well reader, Max was the name of the original mascot costume. The costume was made in 1953 by former Central student Susan Black and her mother, who took a character from the Chronicle and turned it into a school treasure. The character’s origin was that he “metamorphosed from a radio program out of Chicago, to a ‘character’ in the Chronicle, then on to physically appear as the CHS mascot, all within weeks” (according to a Central alum). Just the story of how Max came to be is interesting on its own.
The most recent person to wear the costume was Mr. Hood, who works as a P.E teacher and is the girl’s cross country coach at Central. Mr. Hood wore the costume for the Cross Country team in 2017 for Halloween. He said that “it wasn’t really washable so it had years of body odor permeating it and it was starting to lose its integrity; elastic had gotten crunchy, vinyl was cracking, etc.”
Maybe one day Max will fully return to Central in a new revamped look. For now, however, Max is stuffed in a closet somewhere in Central. Good job Max, you made the school proud.