Ranger Mom
11-29-2005, 03:08 PM
I thought this was rather interesting (sorry if it's been posted before)
Texas High School Mascot Mania
They prowl all over the Lone Star State, most visibly on Friday nights in the fall.
Lions, Tigers and Bears. Blackcats, Bearcats, Bobcats, Tomcats and Wildcats. Even Bluecats and Wampus Cats.
They're Texas high school mascots, and a group of English graduate students at Sam Houston State University (home of the Bearkats) have published a book, "Mascot Mania, Spirit of Texas High Schools," detailing the history or anecdotes that make some of the team names unique.
"It seemed to us that a state as large and diverse as Texas, and with as many high schools as it has, deserved a book devoted to cataloging schools and their mascots," said Paul Ruffin, an English professor who coordinated the semester-long project for the 10 students in his editing and publishing class. The course teaches students how to publish a book, from coming up with an idea to getting it to the press.
"We considered a number of things," Ruffin said. "We had not run across a book on mascots. I said: Why not? Let's do it."
The students got a list of schools from the Texas Education Agency and wrote each school a note explaining their project. When that failed to produce many responses, they hit the phones.
"We contacted principals, librarians and asked them if they had any special stories about why their mascot is unique and why their school chose that mascot," said Betty Burdett, 59, a Houston student working on her English degree. "And we started getting stories back."
Their finished work includes a list of more than 1,000 schools - from the Aggies of Poteet, about 30 miles south of San Antonio, to the Zebras of Grandview, about 35 miles south of Fort Worth.
According to their research, Bulldogs is the most common name, carried by 81 Texas high schools. Eagles is next, with 77. Other popular names are Tigers and Panthers.
But it's the single-name schools that attract the attention.
Like the Hutto Hippos, a name that goes back to 1915 when a hippo escaped from a circus train in Austin and finally was found in a creek near Hutto, about 25 miles to the northeast.
In the 1924 yearbook at Mason High School, the football team was referred to as the cowpunchers, another term for cowboy. As the years went by, the name got shortened to the Punchers and it survives. The school plays in the Puncher Dome.
Local economies factor into the many of the names. In the 1940s, the Rockcrushers of Knippa got their name when a rock-crushing plant moved there, and Rocksprings adopted the name the Angoras when it became "The Angora Goat Capital of the World."
Brazosport High School, along the Gulf Coast, has the Exporters. Robstown has its Cottonpickers, and Port Isabel, at the southern tip of the state on the Gulf of Mexico, has the Fighting Tarpons.
Some were obvious. In Hamlin, Texas? The Pied Pipers. Muleshoe? The Mules. And in Winters? The Blizzards.
Other one-of-a-kinds include the Porcupines of Springtown, who trace their mascot to a 1920s basketball player who suggested the name because people feared the animal's sharp quills. Local folks quoted in the book are more inclined to remember the awful smell of a real porcupine adopted by students in the 1960s.
Itasca's Wampus Cats owe their birth to a 1921 school pep rally where the term apparently was yelled out by a cheerleader. According to the book, it's either a Cherokee evil spirit, a legendary ferocious half-man, half-wildcat wandering Georgia or a striped cat from Tennessee.
The Mighty Red Ants of Progreso are named not for the pesky insect but for the nickname a beloved teacher called her students when the district had only one elementary school. When the high school was built, it was filled with her "little red ants." In the book, football coach Elvis Hernandez is quoted as saying the school name prompts fans from opposing schools to greet his teams with signs of: "Got Raid?"
For a handful of schools, the mascot name itself wasn't fearsome enough, so it's prefaced by "Fighting." The Fighting Braves of Nevada. The Fighting Bucks of Alpine. The Fighting Sandcrabs of Port Lavaca. The Fighting Cowboys of Brownsville's Porter High School. The Fighting Farmers in Lewisville and, as one might guess, Farmersville. Not to be left out, Fredericksburg has the Battling Billies, another term for goats, which is also the mascot for Groesbeck.
In the not-as-intimidating category, Texas mascots also include Gobblers (Cuero), Rabbits (Atlanta) and Cranes (where else but in Crane).
Burdett, who also teaches at a community college in Tomball (where the high school is the Cougars), said the project was not only a fun, team building project, it led to an "A" in the course. More than 600 copies, at $16.95 apiece, have been sold since the book came out in the spring.
"High schools are very much interested in it," said Ruffin, who's been at Sam Houston State for about 30 years. "The beauty here is these students have essentially their own book. They're listed as editors and I got to pay them royalties."
Which means they could come up with their own nickname: Capitalists.
The Top 10 names for Texas high school teams:
Bulldogs, 81
Eagles, 77
Tigers, 65
Panthers, 51
Wildcats, 48
Mustangs 44
Lions, 34
Cougars, 28
Indians 27
Pirates, 27
The article (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=texas+mascots&btnG=Google+Search)
Texas High School Mascot Mania
They prowl all over the Lone Star State, most visibly on Friday nights in the fall.
Lions, Tigers and Bears. Blackcats, Bearcats, Bobcats, Tomcats and Wildcats. Even Bluecats and Wampus Cats.
They're Texas high school mascots, and a group of English graduate students at Sam Houston State University (home of the Bearkats) have published a book, "Mascot Mania, Spirit of Texas High Schools," detailing the history or anecdotes that make some of the team names unique.
"It seemed to us that a state as large and diverse as Texas, and with as many high schools as it has, deserved a book devoted to cataloging schools and their mascots," said Paul Ruffin, an English professor who coordinated the semester-long project for the 10 students in his editing and publishing class. The course teaches students how to publish a book, from coming up with an idea to getting it to the press.
"We considered a number of things," Ruffin said. "We had not run across a book on mascots. I said: Why not? Let's do it."
The students got a list of schools from the Texas Education Agency and wrote each school a note explaining their project. When that failed to produce many responses, they hit the phones.
"We contacted principals, librarians and asked them if they had any special stories about why their mascot is unique and why their school chose that mascot," said Betty Burdett, 59, a Houston student working on her English degree. "And we started getting stories back."
Their finished work includes a list of more than 1,000 schools - from the Aggies of Poteet, about 30 miles south of San Antonio, to the Zebras of Grandview, about 35 miles south of Fort Worth.
According to their research, Bulldogs is the most common name, carried by 81 Texas high schools. Eagles is next, with 77. Other popular names are Tigers and Panthers.
But it's the single-name schools that attract the attention.
Like the Hutto Hippos, a name that goes back to 1915 when a hippo escaped from a circus train in Austin and finally was found in a creek near Hutto, about 25 miles to the northeast.
In the 1924 yearbook at Mason High School, the football team was referred to as the cowpunchers, another term for cowboy. As the years went by, the name got shortened to the Punchers and it survives. The school plays in the Puncher Dome.
Local economies factor into the many of the names. In the 1940s, the Rockcrushers of Knippa got their name when a rock-crushing plant moved there, and Rocksprings adopted the name the Angoras when it became "The Angora Goat Capital of the World."
Brazosport High School, along the Gulf Coast, has the Exporters. Robstown has its Cottonpickers, and Port Isabel, at the southern tip of the state on the Gulf of Mexico, has the Fighting Tarpons.
Some were obvious. In Hamlin, Texas? The Pied Pipers. Muleshoe? The Mules. And in Winters? The Blizzards.
Other one-of-a-kinds include the Porcupines of Springtown, who trace their mascot to a 1920s basketball player who suggested the name because people feared the animal's sharp quills. Local folks quoted in the book are more inclined to remember the awful smell of a real porcupine adopted by students in the 1960s.
Itasca's Wampus Cats owe their birth to a 1921 school pep rally where the term apparently was yelled out by a cheerleader. According to the book, it's either a Cherokee evil spirit, a legendary ferocious half-man, half-wildcat wandering Georgia or a striped cat from Tennessee.
The Mighty Red Ants of Progreso are named not for the pesky insect but for the nickname a beloved teacher called her students when the district had only one elementary school. When the high school was built, it was filled with her "little red ants." In the book, football coach Elvis Hernandez is quoted as saying the school name prompts fans from opposing schools to greet his teams with signs of: "Got Raid?"
For a handful of schools, the mascot name itself wasn't fearsome enough, so it's prefaced by "Fighting." The Fighting Braves of Nevada. The Fighting Bucks of Alpine. The Fighting Sandcrabs of Port Lavaca. The Fighting Cowboys of Brownsville's Porter High School. The Fighting Farmers in Lewisville and, as one might guess, Farmersville. Not to be left out, Fredericksburg has the Battling Billies, another term for goats, which is also the mascot for Groesbeck.
In the not-as-intimidating category, Texas mascots also include Gobblers (Cuero), Rabbits (Atlanta) and Cranes (where else but in Crane).
Burdett, who also teaches at a community college in Tomball (where the high school is the Cougars), said the project was not only a fun, team building project, it led to an "A" in the course. More than 600 copies, at $16.95 apiece, have been sold since the book came out in the spring.
"High schools are very much interested in it," said Ruffin, who's been at Sam Houston State for about 30 years. "The beauty here is these students have essentially their own book. They're listed as editors and I got to pay them royalties."
Which means they could come up with their own nickname: Capitalists.
The Top 10 names for Texas high school teams:
Bulldogs, 81
Eagles, 77
Tigers, 65
Panthers, 51
Wildcats, 48
Mustangs 44
Lions, 34
Cougars, 28
Indians 27
Pirates, 27
The article (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=texas+mascots&btnG=Google+Search)