Weirder than Thou America

[akirlu]

Well, there's the Scottsdale CC Fighting Artichokes, for one. Or Otto the Orange at Syracuse University. Or Don the Mastodon of Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne (a university that must fall back on its abbreviation a lot). And of course, Pete Penguin at Youngstown State University ("Your home for the best in Penguin sports action"). Nevermind what some high schools come up with. (Hard to beat the Watersmeet Nimrods, or the Dunn Earwigs.)

Just in case you were thinking that yer anteaters, sage hens, and banana slugs were in any way weird, as mascots go.

Zot! Zot! Zot!

NB - The compiler of the high school mascots page is apparently not a Bugs Bunny fan. At least, he seems to be completely missing one possible reason why "Maroons" would be an unfortunate name for a team/mascot name.

Comments

[pnh.livejournal.com]

Scottsdale Community College's athletic mascot is the Fighting Artichokes as the result of an early-1970s student campaign against excessive spending on intermural sports. (It is, after all, a community college.) As part of that, the student body deliberately voted for the silly mascot, and, when the administration overruled them, the activists took them to court and won.

A high-school friend of mine was deeply involved in all of this.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Ah, thank you for that. Keeping the athletics budget under control is a good and venerable reason for silly mascot names. I believe it was the same notion that motivated the UC Santa Cruz student body in adopting the banana slug. Also, thanks for further confirmation that six degrees is way too many.

[redbird]

The compiler's sense of weirdness doesn't match mine: I don't see why he flagged "Heroes", for example, or even "Condors" (given the number of teams that use "eagle" without remark.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Well, the high school mascots page compiler himself does make the disclaimer that he's just selecting for unusual or different, more than outright weird. Certainly both "Heroes" and "Condors" I would expect to be on the less-frequently-occurring end of the spectrum.

[numbat.livejournal.com]

The residents of the state of Queensland, or at least those of them who follow rugby leage, don't care for Bugs Bunny either. The QLD State of Origin team (an annual three match series against New South Wales) are called the Maroons (the colour of their uniforms). Of course given their mascot is a canetoad anything Bugs has said in the past pales in comparison.