Glancing at the Roosevelt student section at football games, one is confronted with a strange sight. Flying above the chaos of green and gold is a large blow-up T-Rex, being punched and thrown across the bleachers from student to student in celebration of a touchdown.
There are a wide variety of traditions across Roosevelt sports, but perhaps the most peculiar is the recent appearance of “Dino.” Many students are aware of the dinosaur’s presence, but few know its history.
Dino originated five years ago. Senior Aidan Reid says, “I know from when I had my older sister here, which was six years ago. And that was like, the year before it started.” Since then, the toy has been passed down through each senior class, keeping it within the Roosevelt community. The dinosaur is primarily used to build school spirit and encourage people to attend sporting events.
Mia Garnett, Debra Jayne Symons, and Olivia Kelley, pictured above, with Dino at a fall football game.
While football games are the most-watched sport among the Roosevelt student body, Dino pushes students to diversify the types of games they attend. Reid says its purpose is to “get more people to come to games, not just football games and basketball games, but volleyball and women’s soccer and water polo, all sports.”
To further help promote events, the dinosaur has multiple Instagram accounts where it announces in advance at which games it will appear. Reid runs @dino.mighttt, which often uses fun captions like “Dino might slide to the @rhs_womens_soccer game tonight decked out for the blackout!” Posts like these help spread information about sports games across Roosevelt athletics.
When asked if he thought it helped build school spirit, Reid says, “I do, yeah. A lot of people say things about it, so it sounds like it’s doing a good job.”
Dino has even become a makeshift mascot for Roosevelt, serving as a symbol of the student section and a rallying figure for school morale. Senior Debra Jayne ‘DJ’ Symons says, “He sits on people’s shoulders, and he has to be like in the front row. Yeah, just like a symbol of the whole student section.”
The ownership of Dino often jumps around, but currently Symons owns it. She admits that there have been some mishaps with it throughout the year. “Sometimes we, like, throw them up into the crowd and hope that it doesn’t pop,” she says. “[However,] it popped at the first football game, so then I bought a new one.”
A dinosaur may seem like an odd choice for an animal to represent the student section, but Symons explains that “it’s green, so it goes with our student section.” Reid adds that “A dinosaur is sort of intimidating in a way.”
An outsider may see a group of high school students cheering and laughing with a blow-up dinosaur on their shoulders and think that to be an odd thing. But Dino has become a large part of student spirit– a successful force uniting the Roosevelt community.
