A Warner Robins pastor is on a crusade against something sacred to many in his middle Georgia town: high school football.
The devil is at the center of a fight that seems to start every few years when someone new to Warner Robins realizes that the city's oldest high school, which has one of the most successful football programs in Georgia, rallies around a green-eyed, pitchfork-carrying demon.
The Warner Robins High School Demons.
A pastor at Kingdom Builders Church of Jesus Christ was shocked when he realized his own son could be among the hundreds of students shouting ‘Go Demons!' to cheer on the school's sports teams, but particularly in football, where the Demons have won four state championships over the years.
“It's the equivalent of us gathering into a church on Sunday morning and shouting ‘Go Jesus' or ‘Hallelujah Jesus,'" Donald Crosby, a Warner Robins resident for about a year, told Macon television station WMAZ.
The preacher has tried to move his ninth-grade son to a different school, one with a mascot more to the family's liking. In the meanwhile, he is collecting signatures on a petition to change the symbol.
“Again?” was the reaction from Jenni Russ, class of ’81 and mother of two Demons.
“This is not something new.” Russ told the AJC on Wednesday. “This is typical when you have somebody new to the community. We’ve had people complain about this … I just don’t even connect that with Satan. It’s just a mascot.”
Crosby begs to differ.
"A demon never has a good connotation. Never," Crosby told the Macon TV station. "If you look it up in Webster's Dictionary, there's nothing good about a demon."
Brian Russ, class of ‘82, told the AJC that's part of the point. "Most mascots are supposed to strike fear," Russ told the AJC.
His 15-year-old daughter, Brianna, doesn’t get the preacher’s argument either. “I’ve been part of Demon football since I was a baby,” she said.
Her father was president of the football booster club from 2004-07.
“It has nothing to do with worshiping the Devil. I’m a Christian myself. I love God to death. But the demon mascot has never changed my thoughts about worshiping the Devil."
Brian Russ says he researched the mascot's history. He said the Air Force paid to have the high school built and the mascot was chosen to honor the 7th fighter squadron the "Screamin' Demons" which came to Robins Air Force Base for repairs. Warner Robins High School adopted the mascot when it opened in 1946.
Houston County school officials said it was unlikely the mascot would be changed.
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