When senior Grace Peters exited the football locker rooms, raring to perform for the dance team’s 2024 senior night dance with the honors of wearing the Mighty uniform, she hadn’t expected how the school would react. The dance team had prepared their half-time routine in secret, sneaking the team up to the wrestling room— but as Peters reins her fifteen minutes of fame, she understood the spirit that comes with the uniform.
“When I came out, there were a bunch of little kids by the concession stand that got so excited when they saw Mighty,” Peters said. “I got to hype everyone waiting along the fence by the dance team as well. It was a surprising amount of positive feedback.”
Since the mascot’s resurgence during the 2023-2024 school year, Mighty the Mustang has regained traction as the student body’s hype man. After witnessing a lull in mascot spirit, wrestling coach Zachary Slosser and athletics assistant Olimpia Tienstra reintroduced mascot show out at spirit events from pep rallies to stampedes. Slosser recognizes Mighty’s ability to fuel generations of all ages to spirit our school.
“Kids and even sometimes parents come up to us and ask if they could take a picture with Mighty,” Slosser said. “That mascot represents everyone here at the high school. If we’re able to get the youth to show out to games to see Mighty, then we’re doing it right.”
Mighty’s spirit is completed by the efforts of multiple students rather than one individual. Traditionally represented by a team of athletes, Assistant athletic director Beth Raspopovich hopes to expand the Munster spirit to a wider demographic of students.
“Something we wanted to do, and the reason why I pushed it out to the entire student body this year, was that we know kids from other clubs can rep the Mighty spirit just as well as our athletes,” Raspopovich said. “Someone that’s in speech and debate or someone that’s an actor in theater would be just as great at it too. It doesn’t matter what you do as long as you have the right spirit.”
The evolution of Mighty through the years
Student Government had raised enough funds and donated money to bring the first ever mascot uniform, Mighty the Mustang, to the Munster scene. In the next year to follow, a selection of athletes such as Eric Yttri, class of 2000, was first to wear the suit. “I liked being involved instead of just being a spectator,” Yttri said. (1999 Paragon)
The mascot had been under a lull until Flynn LeMonnier, class of 2014, had picked back up the uniform. LeMonnier had taken up the position of the mascot in honor of his late father, who had similarly taken the role as Benny the Bull for the Chicago Bulls from 1985 to 2014. “I’d try to come up with silly routines to get a rile out of people. I had a mini bicycle, I built a T-shirt slingshot, and I pretended to wax a bald teacher’s head,” he said. (Submitted by Flynn LeMonnier)
Face paint and a cape was all sophomore Donny Williams needed to encapsulate the school spirit of a mascot. In 1968, nearly thirty years before Munster would get their iconic Mighty uniform, Donny Williams took up the honors of Capt. Mustang. (1986 Paragon)
