The new logo chosen to represent GJHS. Lincoln McQuade is a student in Reporting class B and is a guest writer for this opinion piece.

With the new GJHS building roaring in came a new GJHS logo roaring in, one that was representative of the new school.

Honestly, I prefer the older, “boring” interlocked “GJ” logo.

Now, it’s not to say that I don’t like the new tiger head logo, because I think it looks straight-up outstanding, intimidating, and powerful. I also think that Ben Haver, the designer of the logo and a D51 graduate, did a great job at making a big, fearsome beast look big, fearsome, and beast-like. Additionally, Audrey Neumiller, the former GJHS teacher who chose the logo, made a great decision. I admit that the tiger head is indefinitely cooler, but the school still needs to use the “GJ”.

The “GJ” has been a part of the school for years. It’s been on the Tigers’ baseball hats, football helmets, and basketball shorts. I and several others consider it a fixture of the school. Because of things like a basketball camp I went to at GJHS or a few dramatic victories, we have come to easily recognize the “GJ”. If you’re in a nearby store, for example, and you see something that’s barely similar in shape and color, you’ll go “Ope, that’s the GJHS logo”, and you might even think it if you go to Central, Fruita, or Palisade because it’s already that familiar in the area, making it a very memorable logo despite it neither being bold nor striking like the tiger head.

Throwing the memorable logo away and starting over with a completely different logo just feels wrong and almost disrespectful of the school’s history, and young me would be losing his crap even more than current me if he had seen this. You might think “So? There are a trillion sports teams to root for.” This is true, but growing up, I didn’t really have a favorite football team because I never really watched the NFL. To get a taste of football, I watched the high school team when I could. That’s how I was connected to the logo, and when I heard the news about the new logo, I thought it looked neat, but I also felt disappointed because it couldn’t replace the “GJ”. There are a million tiger heads, but only one “GJ”. 

In fact, this is why the Detroit Tigers of MLB still use their olde-English “D” logo. They had their own version of a tiger head with variants that were around from 1927-2005, an insanely long time, even for MLB. The team’s ownership finally got rid of it because their fans never liked it. They didn’t like it because it would look generic and it could be confused with other sports teams with tiger mascots, but the olde-English “D” is unmistakable because there isn’t anything like it. The year after they ditched the logo, the team won the American League Pennant. We’re getting our fair share of parallels between the MLB Tigers and the GJ Tigers.

Of course, I can understand that not everything from GJHS’ history has to be preserved. That’s why we’re getting an entirely new building in 2024-2025. Replacing the crumbling building makes sense, as the old building is obsolete and rapidly aging.

The “GJ”, however, doesn’t age. It will always look good. It has looked good since the 1960s, when the first variation of the logo was introduced, and it shows the school’s history through 4 major additions, unlike the new tiger head; if the school does retire the logo (which might happen in the next few years), then we’ve taken away one of the only core parts of the school’s history that wasn’t full of rodents, bugs, dirt, and mold.

Alas, for my final trick, I want you to picture your favorite sports team, then picture their logo if you didn’t already do that. Chances are, you love the logo because you love the team. It doesn’t matter if you’re biased because you still value the logo. All of a sudden, the owner(s) get rid of it for a logo that can connect with a new group of people. You understand why they do it, but you can’t side with them because the logo you loved is gone and might not ever return, so you took the logo you loved for granted. Then, we replace your sports team with the Tigers and their “GJ” logo. See what I’m talking about?

Being as traditional about logos as I am and considering this building is for teenagers, I don’t even deserve to be whining about this. Nevertheless, just remember how nostalgic and connecting a logo, no matter how plain or generic, can be. I already have freshman year nostalgia even though I’m only a month into my sophomore year, so imagine the nostalgia I could get when I’m in my 30s and I find an old yearbook, then I flip it open to see the “GJ” I’ve known and celebrated since second grade.