Long Island town holds ‘Save the Chiefs' rally in defiance of state ban on mascot
The town of Massapequa is pulling out all the stops to preserve its Chiefs team nickname — with the backing of President Trump and Secretary of Education Linda McMahon — including holding a festival Saturday at the high school's parking lot to fundraise for a homegrown legal battle against the state and its 2023 ban on Native American team names and logos.
'The kids identify with the Chiefs — we all do as a community,' proud Massapequa mom Tara Tarasi, who started a foundation to finance the years-long court fight and sells 'Save the Chiefs' shirts, told The Post.
'This whole town, street names, everywhere you go, is related to something Native American,' added Tarasi, whose four boys are proud to have worn the logo.
4 Kerry Wachter, president of the school board, poses outside Massapequa High School holding a T-shirt featuring the school's Native American mascot and an American flag on the front, and the phrase 'Long Live the Massapequa Chiefs' on the back, along with a quote attributed to former President Donald Trump from a visit to Long Island.
Kevin C Downs forThe New York Post
4 Lori Triail, Connie Versichelli, Julia Catoggio, Eileen Trainor, and Delores Hurst came out to show support for Massapequa High School, where they graduated in the early 1960s, amid efforts to preserve the school's Native American mascot.
Kevin C Downs forThe New York Post
The demonstration — drivers passed by honking loudly in support — comes on the heels of McMahon's recent visit to Massapequa High School, where she warned the state to drop the ban or face the wrath of the Justice Department.
'That's how serious we are about it,' she said in the school gym. 'You've got the Huguenots, we've got the Highlanders, we've got the Scotsman. Why is that not considered in any way racist?'
After McMahon's commentary and Massapequa's amended lawsuit, which called the state's actions discriminatory for applying solely to Native Americans, New York threatened Thursday to broaden its ban to all different ethnic team names the department finds offensive, such as the nearby Seaford Vikings, prospectively.
'That's their workaround … we've demonstrated that this regulation was not a good idea,' Massapequa School Board President Kerry Wachter told The Post at the rally.
4 Tim Ryan, Stacey Roy, Linda Rowse, Janice Talento, Oyster Bay Town Supervisor Joe Saladino, School Board President Kerry Wachter, and School Board Vice President Jeanine Caramore pose for a photo outside Massapequa High School during the rally.
Kevin C Downs forThe New York Post
In Massapequa, a forced rebranding would run the district about $1 million, Wachter claimed.
'Now you're wanting to put another unfunded mandate on top of all these districts who are just barely making it, just to not give Massapequa the win?'
Once a Chief, always a Chief
The issue hit home for Dolores Hurst, class of 1961, who came out with her fellow alumnae in their golden years to root on the Chiefs Saturday afternoon.
'Hopefully, we'll be Chiefs now and forever,' Hurst, whose husband and father were fire chiefs in the volunteer Massapequa Fire Department, said.
'It has meant so much to this town for decades since the 1950s.'
Now 81, Hurst called it an 'astonishing' double standard for the state to try to remove the term from schools, considering it's present in so many other official capacities.
President Trump's intervention — his now locally famous 'LONG LIVE THE MASSAPEQUA CHIEFS!' quote was also sold on shirts Saturday — became 'more than we could have expected, but it's what we needed,' Hurst said.
Andy Kuzma, 73, dressed up as Uncle Sam out of love for the town — and disdain for the state's bureaucrats for attempting to get rid of the team name.
4 The Massapequa Chiefs logo is seen in the school gym during a press conference and visit with U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon at Massapequa High School in Massapequa, N.Y. on Friday, May 30, 2025.
Heather Khalifa for the NY Post
'This is all BS,' Kuzma, of nearby Levittown, said. 'Massapequa shouldn't have to spend a penny … I've never seen somebody in town be derogatory with it.'
Rather than erasing local roots, Tarasi is also using her foundation to try introducing additional Native American programming in the school system — allowing students to further learn about the town's origins.
'They want to understand and actually feel connected,' she said. 'Just getting rid of one piece of it in the school district is not going to get rid of the whole meaning behind the town.'
And, for Wachter, she only cares that the tradition remains — even if it costs her job.
'We want to preserve this identity, we want to preserve the Chiefs,' she said. 'If we have to sacrifice our seats to do it, we will do it.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Post
36 minutes ago
- New York Post
Trump signs executive order cracking down on ‘debanking': ‘Incompatible with a free society'
President Trump signed an executive order Thursday aimed at preventing banks from refusing to offer financial services to people based on their political beliefs or lawful business activities – a practice known as 'debanking.' 'It is the policy of the United States that no American should be denied access to financial services because of their constitutionally or statutorily protected beliefs, affiliations, or political views, and to ensure that politicized or unlawful debanking is not used as a tool to inhibit such beliefs, affiliations, or political views,' Trump wrote in his order. 'Banking decisions must instead be made on the basis of individualized, objective, and risk-based analyses,' he added. 3 Banks that engaged in unlawful debanking may face fines and penalties under Trump's order. AP Earlier this week, Trump accused JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America of rejecting more than $1 billion of his deposits for political reasons. 'The banks discriminated against me very badly,' he told CNBC on Tuesday. Former Republican Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback recently alleged he was 'debanked' by JPMorgan over his conservative religious views – a claim the bank denied. Banks have also been accused of canceling accounts of customers engaged in cryptocurrency ventures and supporting conservative causes, such as Second Amendment activities. Trump noted that victims of debanking have 'suffered frozen payrolls, debt and crushing interest, and other significant harms to their livelihoods, reputations, and financial well-being.' 'Such practices are incompatible with a free society and the principle that the provision of banking services should be based on material, measurable, and justifiable risks,' the president continued, describing discriminatory debanking as 'unlawful.' 3 Major banking groups have endorsed Trump's order. Christopher Sadowski Trump's order directs banking regulators to remove reputational risk and other equivalent concepts from federal guidelines and instructs the Small Business Administration to require all financial institutions to make reasonable efforts to reinstate anyone who was unlawfully debanked. The president further ordered Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to develop a comprehensive strategy to combat debanking, through legislation or new regulations. Banks found to have engaged in discriminatory debanking may be subject to fines or other penalties from regulators, the order stated. 3 Trump accused Bank of America earlier this week of previously refusing his deposits. Getty Images Trump also directed banking regulators to review complaints and data related to debanking and refer potentially unlawful cases to the Justice Department. Major banking groups applauded Trump's executive action. 'Today's Executive Order helps ensure all consumers and businesses are treated fairly, a goal the nation's banks share with the Administration,' the Bank Policy Institute, American Bankers Association, Consumer Bankers Association and Financial Services Forum said in a joint statement. 'It's in banks' best interest to take deposits, lend to and support as many customers as possible,' the groups said. 'Unfortunately, regulatory overreach, supervisory discretion and a maze of obscure rules have stood in the way as the E.O. makes clear.' 'We thank the Administration for its efforts to protect access to banking and rein in runaway regulations and look forward to working with the White House, Congress and the agencies to create a national standard that advances these goals.'
New York Post
an hour ago
- New York Post
Douglas Murray: Mamdani smears Cuomo for allegedly talking to Trump —and yet associates himself with Mahmoud Khalil
'Democratic socialist' Zohran Mamdani is trying to smear one of his rivals by association. Yesterday the Democratic mayoral nominee claimed Wednesday that Andrew Cuomo recently spoke to President Trump by phone. Mamdani claimed that the two men had been 'conspiring about the fate of this city.' Advertisement For his part, former Gov. Cuomo has denied that he has even had a phone call with the president. But so what if he had? Is the president of the United States — a man who won the popular vote last November — so fringe that no candidate for mayor of New York should even speak with him? Advertisement That seems to be Mamdani's view. Keep away from fringe, wacko figures like, er, the president of this country. But if Mamdani is so keen on guilt by non-association, why not apply the same standard to him? To that end it would be good to know why Mamdani has been so happy to advocate for, associate with and even campaign alongside Mahmoud Khalil, formerly of Columbia University. 'A moral victory' Advertisement Readers will remember that Khalil was the former student who was weirdly living with his wife on student accommodation but whose main occupation seemed to be leading student protests at Columbia since October 2023. It is Khalil's group — Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) — that declared the Oct. 7 massacre to be 'a moral, military and political victory' and declared that as an organization CUAD was 'fighting for the total eradication of Western civilization.' After discovering that Khalil — a foreign national — had lied on his visa application, praised terrorists and organized unrest in New York, ICE detained Khalil. He promptly became one of the great poster boys of the anti-American left. Advertisement They decided that nobody in America will be free until Mahmoud Khalil is free. Former Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil, accompanied by his wife Noor Abdalla, raises his hands as he arrives for a press conference outside the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York on June 22, 2025. AFP via Getty Images They decided that Khalil had done nothing wrong and was indeed a free-speech martyr. It's funny the people some folks are willing to make into folk heroes. Since his release from ICE detention, Khalil has been playing the same sob story as his wife did while he was in custody — claiming that America had been exceptionally mean to him. Apparently all he wanted to do was to study in the US. Something he appears to have spent almost zero time actually doing — preferring the path of agitation. 'Had to reach' Now, in an interview out this week, Khalil has once again exposed his real views and intent. In an interview with Ezra Klein of The New York Times, he talked about why he came to America in the first place. Advertisement He said that he was attracted to 'the quality of education' in this country, knew about Columbia because of its reputation in 'Palestinian circles' and was pleased to get a scholarship in 2018. Democratic New York City mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani during a news conference outside the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building on Thursday, August 7, 2025, in New York, N.Y. James Keivom He didn't exactly reward this country for the honor and opportunities it gave him. In fact, he seems to have found one of the most radical campuses in America to be not radical enough for him. Advertisement 'The anti-Palestinian sentiment at Columbia was very obvious,' he now claims — a statement so deranged that you wonder whether Khalil knows the difference between up and down, earth and sky. But it is his statements about Hamas and the October 7th massacre that are most disgusting. Asked about his reaction to the events of that day, he said: 'It felt frightening that we had to reach this moment in the Palestinian struggle.' Apart from asking who the 'we' is in that sentence, I'd love to know why Khalil thinks that raping women and massacring young people at a dance party is some kind of inevitability. According to Khalil, 'We [again] couldn't avoid such a moment.' Advertisement 'Palestinians are here' Pushed lightly on why it was necessary to murder babies and kidnap pensioners, Khalil went on to explain that the problem was that the Israelis were trying to make a peace and normalization deal with the Saudis. Something that would have added to the extraordinary success of the Abraham Accords that had been signed with other Arab countries. Khalil thinks that the idea of 'normalization' is appalling. Advertisement In his view, the Palestinians 'are not being heard' and so the atrocities and barbarism of October 7th were an 'attempt to tell the world that Palestinians are here.' That's certainly one hell of a way to tell people. 'It was not inevitable' In case it isn't obvious, this is pure apologism for Hamas. Moderate, peace-loving Palestinian voices comprehensively refute Khalil's evil view. For instance, the proud American, Gazan-born Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, said yesterday, 'Khalil invoked the repetitive and tired idea that the October 7 attack by Hamas was an inevitability, when the truth is far more straightforward and needs to be told by Gazan voices and those who are impacted by the war.' 'October 7th was a choice, not an inevitability! A choice that two psychopaths made from within Hamas' military wing, Sinwar and Al-Deif. It was not inevitable that Gaza had to be the source of the worst single-day attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust.' He went on: 'Hamas squandered billions of dollars and tens of thousands of lives for a fraudulent resistance narrative.' Unfortunately, Khalil is one of many arrivals in this country who have pushed that fraudulent narrative. The same people who claim, as Khalil went on to claim in his interview with Klein, that the bloody and murderous Second Intifada [2000-2005] was a mostly 'peaceful uprising.' So, Mr. Mamdani, if Gov. Cuomo is to be smeared for having the audacity to even be reported to have spoken to the US president, what are we to make of you knowingly and repeatedly associating with a terrorist mouthpiece? What are the voters of New York to think about a candidate for mayor who is so happy to advocate for terrorists for years and associate himself even now with someone who makes such excuses for terrorism? Any candidate for mayor who thinks President Trump is a more reprehensible figure than a Hamas apologist should be nowhere near the running of this city.
New York Post
2 hours ago
- New York Post
NYC officials walk faster than M34 bus in rush-hour race victory lap over controversial plans for busway
City leaders on foot cruised to victory in a race against a Midtown MTA bus during Thursday evening's rush as they celebrated renewed plans to limit or ban cars on 34th Street for a controversial busway along the traffic-jammed route. A handful of local lawmakers, including Councilman Erik Botcher, Comptroller Brad Lander, and state Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal and mayoral front-runner Zohran Mamdani, speed-walked across 34th Street from First to Eighth avenues, beating out the M34 bus by seven minutes. 3 Mayoral front-runner Zohran Mamdani, Councilman Erik Botcher, NYC Comptroller Brad Lander, and Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal led the late afternoon race against the M34 bus, speed walking to victory Stephen Yang for the New York Post Advertisement The race was held a day after the City Council Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises and the Committee on Land Use signed off on the busway — part of a larger Midtown South rezoning plan — after it had reportedly hit a roadblock. The busway, different from a bus lane in that it would limit private vehicles along the busy crosstown thoroughfare, was first proposed in May with the goal of speeding up the normally sluggish M34 and M34A buses. But Council members grew concerned that Mayor Eric Adams left the plan dead in the water until it was revived Wednesday. Advertisement 'There was some back and forth. That's why people were calling it the Miracle on 34th Street because this was taken off the table … we got it back, so I'm very grateful for that,' Holyman-Sigal told the Post at the race. Adams sent out a statement Wednesday touting the rezoning plan after it was approved the Council committees. 'With today's vote, we're taking another step forward in helping to create a more dynamic Midtown South where New Yorkers of all income levels can live, work, and play,' he said. 'This agreement underscores our commitment to pairing housing with investments in our infrastructure — including the transformation and reconstruction of Broadway and 34th Street busway,' Hizzoner added. Advertisement The rezoning plan will be sent off for a vote in the full Council next week Twenty-eight thousand commuters ride the bus on 34th Street every day. Buses often run slower than 5.5 mph in rush hour traffic, officials said. 3 Mayor Eric Adams announced his backing of the 34th Street busway under a larger Midtown rezoning proposal. Stephen Yang for the New York Post During Thursday evening's race, Councilman Keith Powers, DOT Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez, and about 30 volunteers rode the losing bus. Advertisement The triumphant 'Pedestrian Prancers' were handed the 'Busway champion' medals after completing the fast-paced walk alongside 50 volunteers. Hecklers on the street also followed Mamdani as he was the first to cross over the orange finish line. 3 The triumphant 'Pedestrian Peddlers' were handed the 'Busway champion' medals after completing the fast-paced speed walk alongside 50 volunteers Stephen Yang for the New York Post
