Mr. Maroo. Everyone knows him, and everyone loves him. But do they really know him? Dive into the history of his life to become a little more informed of this maroon legend and keep reading to find out which most common belief about him is completely wrong.

Mr. Maroo has been the mascot of Austin High School since 1965, but other versions of the notorious fellow have been around for longer. For a while, we were just called the Maroons, but the opening of Travis High School and McCallum High School prompted a need for something unique. Several ideas of an alternate mascot were tried out, including a Springer Spaniel puppy named Maroona in 1939, but ultimately John Reichert and his students in the fall of 1956 were the first to think of a fuzzy 4 ‘2 maroon puffball. After that, Wendy Winn took that concept and drew up the iconic design we know today. 

Now for the comet idea. A very common belief is that Mr. Maroo is a comet from outer space that crashed into Earth and decided to stick around Austin High. However that is false, he is an actual physical embodiment of school spirit. Though there is a theory that he’s an alien, due to a UFO sighting the year he was created. 

To get even deeper into Mr. Maroo’s history, we decided to interview our resident head librarian, Ms. Stewart, who is a bonafide Mr. Maroo encyclopedia. According to her, his name and concept could come from the “Li’l Abner comics[,] and obviously our school colors”. She says that he could be inspired by one of the characters, though looking through lists of them, it’s hard to tell which one. Along with Mr. Maroo, came Ms. Maroo, who was created to represent female sports teams. The description of Ms. Maroo is a puffball with a polka dot hair bow and an aggressive appearance to show the competitive side of female teams.

All in all, Mr. Maroo is a vital part of our school and his history needs to be known by current and future generations. Now you know that he is officially not a comet, he is the same height as the average ten-year-old, and he has an aggressive polka dot-donned sister. He is constantly evolving and changing his design, so even you can influence his history.