Strange Mascot Names

You’re listening to A Way with Words.

I’m Martha Barnette.

And I’m Grant Barrett.

Martha, when I was in school, we had mascot names like the Troy Trojans.

That’s kind of logical for a place called Troy, right?

The Trojans?

I thought you were going to say for a high school.

The Troy Trojans, yeah, that works.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay, and what about the Greenville Bears?

The Greenville Bears, okay.

Yeah, we had the Atherton Rebels.

Rebels.

There’s a fighting force behind that.

You feel like you could cheer on the rebels.

But could you cheer on the Kewpies?

The what?

The Kewpies.

The Hickman Kewpies.

This was in town in Columbia, Missouri, where I went to the university.

There was a Hickman High School had the Kewpies were their mascot, as in Kewpie dolls.

You know, those cute little plastic dolls with the curl, the lock, the curly lock right in the forehead.

The Kewpies.

I don’t think I could cheer on the Kewpies.

But I’m looking here at a list.

There’s a variety of lists online of interesting names of high school mascots.

And I guess you kind of get tired of everyone being the rebels or the Tigers or the Indians or what have you.

So you get things like the Merrill.

These are also from Missouri, my home state, Merrillville spoofhounds.

I have no idea what the story is behind that.

Spoofhounds.

Oh, my gosh.

What is a spoofhound?

Well, I’m interested in reading all about this.

I’ve been really into naming lately, and I’m looking at names of team sports and trying to figure out what’s the power there.

Sometimes it’s a history element, right?

If you call yourself the Kewpie Dows, it’s probably because, and this actually is the real story,

They’re called the QP’s because the person who supposedly made the QP is from that town.

So you’re borrowing a bit of local history and naming your team after that.

Makes sense, right?

You’re naming your student body after it, I guess.

Oh, yeah.

I’d be really intimidated by the fighting QP’s if I were on the other side.

And I assume that the Merrillville spoofhounds have something similar going on, although I can’t be sure.

I was not able to get to the bottom of that origin.

Okay, spoofhound.

That’s not so bad.

What about the watersmeet nimrods?

The who?

The watersmeet?

Watersmeet, Michigan.

The Nimrods.

No, yeah.

But Nimrod’s kind of old-fashioned.

Do people still understand that that means a doofus or fool?

I think so.

Well, tell us about your high school team names, whether they were the Fighting Porcupines or the Apple Knockers.

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