Southeast Missouri State was a charter member of the Division II athletic conference Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association (MIAA) from 1912 until moving to Division I and joining the OVC in 1991. Before January 2005, the athletic team nicknames were the "Indians" (men's teams) and "Otahkians" (women's teams), and the University's mascot was known as Chief Sagamore, represented by a student dressed in Native American regalia. Chief Sagamore was retired as mascot in the mid-1980s due to a growing cultural sensitivity to Native American mascots, but the team names lasted for nearly 20 more years. After a movement by Student Government, the Booster Club and the National Alumni Council, those names were officially retired in a ceremony on October 22, 2004, and replaced with "Redhawks."
