See new look for Central East High as Fresno school changes mascot to Bengals
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Central East rebranded as Bengals, retaining colors and bear claw school logo.
- New uniforms debuted in July, replacing 'Central' with 'Bengals' on jerseys.
- Players received white-striped helmets, echoing NFL Cincinnati Bengals design.
For Central East football coach Kyle Biggs, being called the Bengals doesn’t matter much.
That’s after Central Unified School District administrators finalized changes that assigned the school’s traditional mascot, the Grizzlies, to Central West High while declaring Central East would be re-named the Bengals.
According to a December staff presentation, Central East would keep its current school logo of a claw, as well as the original school colors of orange and black. The original Central High, located at McKinley and Dickenson avenues, would keep its “current crest” with orange and gray as its colors.
Biggs, who led the then-Grizzlies to a state title in 2019 and another state appearance in 2024, was disappointed that the name was “taken from us.”
“It’s above my pay grade,” Biggs said. “I wasn’t asked for my opinion or for my decisions. I just do what I’m told, and I’m going to make the best of a bad situation. You give kids some new logos, helmets, uniforms all of sudden they’re OK with it. Kids are going to play. Don’t matter who we are: Ravens, Grizzlies, Bengals, Seahawks. It doesn’t matter.”
The Bengals received their new uniforms in July. As expected, the uniforms are the same colors but instead of “Central” on the front of the jersey, it reads “Bengals.” The home jerseys will be black and the away jerseys will be white.
The helmets are new to the players. It is similar to the helmet that the NFL’s Cincinnati Bengals wear. It’s all black with stripes. The Bengals will also have an all-white helmet with black stripes.
Grizzlies wideout E.J. Morgan really enjoys how the helmets look.
“I feel like the white one is a little better than the orange and black one just because they got that Cincinnati Bengals all-white look,” he said.
“I really like the white helmets.”
This story was originally published August 8, 2025 at 10:38 AM.
