SPORTS
Too many thoughts about high school mascots
Part of my job in writing stories is doing a little research into opposing team’s mascots.
A peak behind the curtain, when referring to teams, it gets redundant to keep saying the school’s name over and over when referring to them. An easy way I break it up is switching between the school’s mascot and name.
It usually does not take a lot of effort to find any high school’s mascot. I use Max Preps as my first check. Only every now and then does some small private school does not have their mascot listed or I can’t tell from the logo. A school’s website is the next check and usually it’s plastered in the background somewhere on the athletics page.
For girl team’s, I learned to put “Lady” in front of any mascot name. Sometimes it is just that easy to put it front of the mascot name. For some mascots, it is not.
There are two schools in the Wichita Falls area that have the mascot “Bulls” with Graham and Bridgeport always being on the schedule for Bowie and Nocona in almost every sport. (Correction: Graham are the Steers)
Especially around these parts where people know better, I can’t just be lazy and put Lady Bulls. They don’t exist and someone would let me know.
Through further research, I learned Graham girl teams are called “Lady Blues” and at Bridgeport they go by the “Sissies.” Both names are interesting ways to get around this dilemma.
Speaking of things that don’t exist, with Chico being the “Dragons”, their mascot opens up a whole can of worms.
Who’s to say a lady bull doesn’t or can’t exist in fiction or mythology, though a quick Google search doesn’t bring up anything obvious in that realm.
I’ve had that question with Lindsay’s mascot, the “Knights.” While we’ve seen lady knights in medieval fantasy stories for decades, I’m pretty sure during actual days of traditional knights and lords, only men were allowed.
Technically, females have been knighted for more than 100 years, but besides putting “Dame” in their name it’s not like they don armor, swords, shields, etc. like we think of when we see knight.
Still, Lindsay calls its girl teams the Lady Knights so I have as well in print.
The most common form of mascot name in high school sports is an animal.
Of the eight school districts covered in The Bowie News coverage area, only Nocona’s is not some animal, but a type of person (Indian). Bears (Gold-Burg), longhorns (Forestburg) and panthers (Saint Jo), oh my. I want to pet a bulldog (Prairie Valley) and a jackrabbit (Bowie). Bellevue and Montague are both eagles.
A fun scenario every fan who has ever made a sign for a sporting event has been to imagine what would happen if the school’s mascots met for a confrontation.
The ones that are obviously one-sided are usual easy fodder for sign makers.
Some designs of mascots stand out from others, with school colors needing to play on things in unexpected ways or fierce designs for sometimes docile animals.
My favorite one I see sometimes, whenever one of my school’s play at their gym, is Springtown’s “Porcupine” mascot. The thing is so monstrous looking, it reminds me of the legendary Pokemon, Groudon.
Another unique one I remember seeing is the Grandview “Zebras.” Yes, you better believe the school colors are the colors of a zebra. Of course they keep the stripe pattern of a zebra on their uniform and football helmets and it’s only natural they run out of the mouth of the fiercest looking zebra head at games as well.
The only way my mascot knowledge grows is when my team’s play different schools, which is hard to do for some of them unless they make it far in the playoffs to play some teams that are hours drives away they would never play normally.
With the Nocona girl’s basketball team recently making it to the state tournament, a few new schools had mascots that made me do a double-take.
The Frost Polar Bears is the most perfectly named mascot for a school in the state. I know the town was named after Samuel R. Frost and not because it snows there anymore than more than the rest of the state, but you have to lean in on this opportunity and they did.
No other school in Texas could be the polar bears. It just would not work.
Not just that, they had a host of other options to go with that no other school could have gotten away with, but they went with the most apex, coolest predator in the artic climate.
The school colors being blue and white were just the icing on the cake.
It was unfortunate they completely went away from this winter theme at said playoff game when the student section dressed in the always fun “Hawaiian day” theme.
I almost put as much stock in that decision as to why Nocona beat the leis off of them in the game. Embrace what you are Frost.
Another unique mascot encountered came later during the state tournament. The Lady Indians played the Wellington Skyrockets. I’m sorry, what? Named after a firework? The logo looks more like just a rocket. Either way, that is different.
Even if you want to just zero in on the rocket in the name, Wellington is located in the panhandle, 543 miles and more than an eight hour drive from NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Further research shows one person who was born, but not raised, in Wellington, John Aaron, did work at NASA as an engineer and is said to have played an important role in the Apollo 12 and 13 missions. Maybe that played a part.
Probably some other thing is the reason which 10 minutes of Google searching did not bring up. I just thought it was unique.
We would love to hear from our readers what school mascot names you have come across and why they stand out. Email me at [email protected] or share it on our Facebook page.
The Nocona Indians wrapped up their first playoff berth since 2005 with a dominant win against Chico on Thursday at home.
The Indians won 10-0 in four and half innings due to run-rule to earn the district’s final playoff spot and break a nearly two decade drought.
Nocona was in a similar situation last year after beating Chico in the first game before losing twice more to the Dragons, once in the regular season finale and then in the play-in series.
The Indians won the first game earlier in the week 9-4, but knew they could play better. On Thursday they then proved it.
In the bottom of the first inning, Nocona got the scoring going as Wesley Murphey hit an RBI double. Two batters later, Landon Fatheree drove in two runs with a double.
Konnor Harrington followed with a groundout that scored another run as the Indians led 4-0.
In the second inning, Nocona kept up the pressure. Brody Langford drove in a run with a single. Later with the bases loaded, Caden Belcher was hit by a pitch that scored a run. A later passed ball allowed one more run to score as the Indians extended their lead to 7-0.
Nocona got one more run in the third inning. With the bases loaded, Wesley Murphey grounded into a fielder’s choice out that scored one run to make it 8-0.
The Indians got the final two runs they needed in the fourth inning. Walker Murphey and RJ Walker hit back-to-back RBI singles to put Nocona up 10-0.
Chico needed to score at least one run to prevent the game from ending early due to run-rule. Instead Walker Murphey completed the shutout performance by retiring the next three batters to end the game and the Dragon’s season.
The Indians won 10-0 and earned the district’s final playoff spot.
Wesley Murphey and Fatheree drove in two runs each to lead the team. Walker Murphey led the team with three hits. The team finished with 11 hits and drew six walks.
Walker Murphey also allowed zero runs and one hit while striking out five batters and walking none. The defense behind him committed only one fielding error.
Coach Zach Denson was beyond proud of this team for breaking the playoff drought.
“The amount of growth that they have shown throughout the year has been the most incredible I’ve seen in 13 years of coaching,” Denson said. “We went on a little skid in the middle of the year and that could have derailed our young team, but it actually brought us closer together as a unit.”
To read the full story, pick up a copy of the mid-week edition of the Bowie News.
The Bowie Jackrabbits were able to clinch the final playoff spot on Thursday with a senior night home win against Henrietta.
The Jackrabbits won 6-1 in a game where all of the offensive action happened in the first three innings for both teams.
Bowie came into the game needing to win. Failing to do so would mean setting up a series with the Bearcats for the final playoff spot. If the Jackrabbits just took care of business against a team they had already beaten once pretty easily then they could avoid that whole situation.
Henrietta knew it was playing for the future of its season and struck first. A one out double followed by a single two batters later put the Bearcats up 1-0 against Bowie’s top pitcher Edmond De Leon on the mound.
The offense responded in the same inning with a two-out rally. Troy Kesey hit a single and Hayden Rodriguez drew a walk. De Leon then hit a double to drive one run in.
Cooper Hammer was then hit a by a pitch to load the bases up. Rayder Mann then drew a walk that scored one run and the Jackrabbits led 2-1 before the next batter popped up for out three.
Bowie added to that lead in the second inning. Boston Farris led off with a triple. Tucker Jones then hit a groundball to second base that resulted in an error that allowed Farris to score and make it 3-1 for the Jackrabbits.
Bowie then extended the lead in the third inning. Hammer hit a one-out single. Mann and Cy Egenbacher followed with hits that resulted in fielding errors for the Bearcats. The Jackrabbits scored one run on the second error.
Farris then hit a single that drove in another run. After a strikeout, a wild pitch then allowed another runner to score as Bowie was up 6-1. Another strikeout ended the scoring for the Jackrabbits.
The next three and half innings saw neither team score runs, though both had several chances with two runners getting on at times.
Henrietta’s best chance came in the fifth inning with two singles, but De Leon and Bowie’s defense shut that down. De Leon retired the final seven batters he faced as the Jackrabbits won 6-1.
To read the full story, pick up a copy of the mid-week edition of the Bowie News.
Last week all of the area schools competed in their district’s tennis tournament and several schools had athletes qualify for the regional tournament.
In the end, 10 athletes finished second or better at district to move on for a chance to qualify for state.
Unfortunately, no players from Bowie were able to break through and qualify.
Many faced early seeding opponents from tennis power Vernon that ended their tournament.
The highest finish for a Bowie player was Lily Hodges who placed fourth in girls singles.
From Nocona, one girl was able to break through as Kaygan Stone finished second in girls singles to qualify for regionals.
Stone has had a tough year, dealing with shoulder problems that shortened both her volleyball and basketball seasons, but she bounced back this spring to qualify for regionals in tennis.
Her teammate Melissa Segura was not so lucky, as she finished third in girls singles and just missed the cut, having to settle for an alternate spot
At the 1A tournament, several schools had multiple athletes in one division qualify.
From Saint Jo, last year’s state qualifying girl’s doubles team of Kyler Dunn and Taylor Patrick won the division.
They beat out the second place finisher and their teammates, the girl’s doubles team of Maxey Johnson and Bailey Nobile, who also qualified for regionals.
From Gold-Burg, Jimena Garcia and Alyson Rojas placed first and second in girls singles to move on to the regional tournament.
Other schools only had one team or individual.
From Forestburg, the mixed doubles team of Jesse Wadsworth and Alli Cisneros finished second as they qualified for regionals.
From Prairie Valley, Case Carpenter finished second in the boys singles division.
To read the full story and see pictures of all of the qualifiers, pick up a copy of the mid-week edition of the Bowie News.
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