My high school had different names for different teams. Our football players were the Blue Knights -- a bit odd, but not completely bizarre.
Our swim team was the Ironmen.
Seriously.
They had a slogan of "Ironmen Never Rust" but still.
I suppose it's not that surprising coming from a high school called Wyoming Seminary, located in Kingston, Pennsylvania. For reasons unclear to me, that region is the Wyoming Valley.
I couldn't resist so I Googled "high school team nicknames, found a list of quite a few "special" ones. Some seem to have no correlation to reality. Of course the WV town of Poca had the Dots. Oddly,Yorktown, NY is listed as the "corn Huskers" as well. They also listed "the Goslings (baby geese?) Not exactly a name to strike terror into an opponent. Here's the link:
http://www.tekonsha.k12.mi.us/scaa/teamnames.htm
Also try
http://highschoolnicknames.homestead.com/
"Ironmen Never Rust"
that is a great slogan, i will admit there are some great names to pick from...
I don't think it has been mentioned yet but my undergrad is University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire where the mascot is the Blugolds. Of course the school colors are blue and gold but nobody knows what the hell a Blugold is. The three theories are:
1) there used to be a lot of Bulldogs in the same conference so they change the name, but it was the depression so they just rearranged the letters. However there are no other Bulldogs in the conference
2) It is a mythical bird from Greco-roman history (not true)
3) Administration feed the student body some crap about how it is the spirit that resides in each student.
Also Blooming Prairie MN high school mascot was mentioned "the Awesome Blossoms" but not their middle school mascot which is "The Pansies!" Seriously of all the flowers they picked Pansies?!
(I e-mailed this to Dave, but totally brain cramped on posting here. wac)
Cairo, GA High School has the wost (best).
Cairo SyrupMakers.
It doesn't make sense, unless, you know that the citizenry pronounce Cairo K LONG A Row
Karo SyrupMakers.
They don't make syrup in Cairo, Ga, but, they use to.
This is a copy of the Wikipedia article about them.
Cairo (pronounced Kay-Row instead of Ki-Row like the Egyptian city) is nicknamed the "syrup city" because of his high school football team. Roddenberry's, a well known food company, was formerly located in Cairo. One of their main products was syrup. The syrup made in Cairo is cooked from sugar cane juice and is not the corn syrup known as "Karo syrup," although the names sound the same. During a driving rainstorm in the middle of a football game many years ago, workers at the local syrup shelter brought over their rain coats labeled "Roddenberry's Syrup" on the backs of the jackets to keep the players dry. Roddenberry's was known for many other products like peanut butter and pickles and fortunately the "SYRUPMAKERS" portion of the plant was closer than the "BUTTERCHURNERS" and the "PICKLEPACKERS." In 1986 ESPN named the term Syrupmaker the number one nickname for a high school sports team. The mascot is depicted as a syrup pitcher. The term is often shortened to "Maids" for the girls or "Makers" for the boys. The 2008 Football Syrupmakers are Class AAA State Champions after the school's second undefeated season (1990 was the other).
Phillips University (in good, old Enid, Oklahoma) had a hard time making up their minds, too; their guys were the Haymakers,and their girls were the Fillies. However, they decided they needed an academic mascot, so, since the school's initials were P.U., they made it a skunk. A cute skunk, but a skunk.
It is unsurprising that the school closed two years later.
The Gamecock is a unique mascot. Cocky was voted mascot of the year in 2004!
Not that it's hilarious but it's probably unique: the Southern Illinois U mascot is the Saluki (saLUkey). It's an Egyptian breed of dog something like an Afghan hound. Southern Illinois was once called Egypt because there was a drought farther north and people came down to "Egypt" to buy grain, as in an Old Testament story. The campus paper is or was the Daily Egyptian.
Here in Utah we have a high school whose mascot is the Beet Diggers. Not quite the tater peelers, but it is pretty close.
The high was torn down a rebuilt because it was old, and they talked about changing the name. But after the votes were case, it is still the Jordan High School Beet Diggers.
I grew up in a suburb of Cleveland, and went to a high school named after the guy who create the Arc Lamp and combined with Edison when he started up General Electric.
We were the Brush Arcs (roughly translated to Brush Lightbulbs) and our mascot, Arcy the Arc Lamp, was nothing more than a guy with a giant lightbulb for a head with lightning bolts for ears.
Supposedly, since I graduated, Arcy has beefed up and become kinda "cool". I wish I could find an image of how horrible the old costume was.
How about the Chinook Montana Sugar Beeter? check out this mascot -
http://www.mentalfloss.com/wp-content/uploads/2007 /02/MFbeeter%20guy1.jpg
My alma mater Syracuse University has always been the Orangemen, named for the local Onandaga indian tribe. When I attended back in the Stone Age they had a mascot dressed as a native American - since that was declared politically incorrect the mascot has dressed as a citrus fruit. Lately the school decided that fruit is not intimidating (ya think?) and have redesigned the mascot to be an ANGRY-LOOKING citrus fruit. Let's go Orange!
I went to Basic High School in Henderson, NV. That's right, the name of the school was "Basic High". And before you ask, our big rival was not with Complex High School across town. We were the wolves, which isn't so bad, though increasingly we became "Los Lobos". Our football team once lost a game with the final score 3-2. That's right. Football. 3-2. Of course it could have been worse. While my older brother was there the soccer team scored their first goal.... in 6 years.
Dave, my high school mascot is also the Dons. Pleasanton CA
What, no Stanford Cardinal? Yay! A...color. But then I'm an Aggie so I really can't say much. Texas A&M Aggies...but our mascot is a dog. *scratches head*
Central High Purple Pounders. No one EVER made fun of us.
And I go to UTC, I saw the comment about how we're the Mocs (Mockingbirds). It's true...kind of a lame bird. Before we were the Moccasins, the shoes. Before that, Chief Mocanooga....but that was scrapped due to lack of political correctness.
Yuma High School is Yuma, Arizona is the home of the, I kid you not, Yuma Criminals.
Their wrestling team's warm ups were striped inmate's uniforms.
Wow.. I didn't know that South Jordan is the beet diggers. I have cousins who attend that school. *lol* No real surprise tho given the love of pickled beets in Utah.
I had somewhat normal names for my mascots. Tigers, Dolphins, Bulldogs (I was part of the first class for my middle school so we all participated in voting for the mascot! That was fun)... And then we get to...the Pilots...but not ANY pilots... Gray Middle School ship pilots.... as in boats (the school was named after Capt. Robert Gray)
High School was the Thunderbirds...our rival? The Lincoln High School Abes....yeah...original.
Now Canada has some cool colleges. Xavier University X-Men (X-Women for their female teams) for example. *lol*
From Wikipedia:
"Nebraska's football team began its history as the "Old Gold Knights", and was also sometimes known as the "Tree Planters", "Nebraskans", "The Rattlesnake Boys", "Red Stockings", "Antelopes" or "Goldenrods" in their early years."
From the official Huskers site:
"Named after the insect-devouring bull bats that hovered over the plains..." Bullbats are more commonly known as nighthawks, which is now the name of the UFL franchise in Omaha.
Here's a good list... http://www.listology.com/list/weird-and-original-n ames-college-mascots
RISD for the win!
