By the way, it’s Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas that has the “Ichabod” mascot. My alma mater–Southwest Missouri State University (home of the all-too-conventionally-named “Bears”)–used to play them in football and basketball.
My high school was one of only (I believe) two high schools in the United States with the unlikely mascot of “Farmer”. How goofy is that? This is the SF Bay Area…
College mascot at the University of Chicago? Maroon. I suppose that’s no weirder than “Crimson” or “Cardinal”.
Well it may not be a lower form of life but my school has a demented, retarded looking, glasses wearing, diploma toting, graduate cap wearing, tazmanian devil wannabe for a mascot. We’re the Rebels.
It’s better than out tennis team, they’re the TIs TI as in Texas Instrusments, as in calculators. Oh yeah, that’s scary.
I’m not sure if it was just for that competition but I do remember the Al Hambra Lab Rats…
“What are we going to do tonight, Brain?”
Kitty
Thanks to all who chimed in. There are some truly strangely motivated people who name high school sports teams.
::::bows, scuffs shoe in dirt shyly, tugs forelock:::
We were the Fremont (Oh) Little Giants. A little confusing when I first heard it, but there was story that made it all better. I save you all.
College wasn’t much better: the fearsome Univ of Delaware Blue Hens. Not just chickens, BLUE chickens. Jeesh!!
Did you go to school in Rockwall, TX by any chance? That was our mascot there.
Wow, I think some of you may have got me beat, but here goes. My mother went to school in Big Timber, Montana, home of the Sweet Grass County Sheepherders! (Yeehaw!) The Sheepherder was traditionally depicted as an old bearded man with a pipe. However, sometime in the late 1980’s, the Sheepherder must have given up smoking. He also may have given up herding sheep, but not herding entirely…the uniforms started to say just “Herders” sometime around then, too. He might be clean-shaven today, for all I know.
My junior high’s teams were called the “Kittens”, after the high school’s much more conventional “Tigers”. Apparently, most of the teams we played (which did not include the Sheepherders, although the high school teams did play them) had had “baby” versions of their high school nicknames at some time (such as “Eaglets” for “Eagles”, and so on), but our school was the only one which still used ours by the time I was in junior high. It was just so darn cute :).
Mine wasn’t an especially weird mascot, but it was extremely coincidental. When I lived in Florida, we were the Lincoln High Trojans. Our colors were green and gold, and our rival school was the Lions, colors red and white. Sophomore year I moved to Massachusetts, where I found myself a member of the Bridgewater Trojans, colors red and white. Nearby school…Lions, green and gold. What’re the odds that I be a Trojan at 2 different schools, with opposing colors?
There’s a town in Texas called Forney. Actually, I don’t know what their mascot is, but if it is anything other than the Gators it would be a tragedy.
We were the Ingots. I suppose we got the name because of our being in the steel mill region of NW Indiana. Other schools hated playing us for homecoming because they best slogan they could come up with was, “Melt the Ingots”.
A friend of mine who spent one year of High School in some Minneapolis suburb supposedly went to a school where the mascot was the Skipper. I guess there was a lot of sailing going on in this town (land of 10,000 lakes, ya know) and Skippers seemed particularly emblematic of the town.
One can only imagine the fear in the opposing teams: “Eeek, it’s the Skippers!!”
The “Nannies” and the “Suns.”
Dammit!!! Palandine, you shook down my thunder!
However, I will add that the mascot for the Indiana School for the Blind is:
The Blind Hoosiers.
My father went to that high school (gee, guess Mom and Dad both had weird high school mascots). It’s in Minnetonka, which, of course, is on the shore of Lake Minnetonka, where some sailing does take place 
One time when we were cleaning out some old junk, we came across Dad’s old high school yearbook. When I found out that their mascot was the Skipper, I asked Dad if truancy was a big problem there. (In my high school, a skipper was what we called someone who skipped class).
Here in Colorado, we too have a Beetdigger, a Rattler, also a Farmer and even a Mean Moose and in Rocky Ford, Colorado, the Melloneers. Everytime the mascot (a round ball of a watermellon) falls over, he has to be helped up. It’s priceless.
Of course there are the Las Animas Trojans. Last year at a football game, a young man came out with the team dressed as a six-foot tall condom. I heard he was suspended. It had such potential as a headline too.
Perhaps my favorite mascot story was Troy Aikman’s old high school in Henrietta, Oklahoma. They were named the Henrietta Hens after the old Disney cartoon character.
That isn’t the fascinating part. The girls team was called the Henrietta Lady Hens.
You mean there is some other kind?
I heard they have since changed their mascot. The Hen wasn’t macho enough for the boys.
My high school-Deer Park High-creatively selected the deer as a mascot. I used to think it was lame, but now that I’ve read about the Zippers and Bubbles,the deer seems positively fierce by comparison. Needless to say at every football game the opposing team brought a banner reading “It’s deer season!” I think we might be the only Deer in the country.
The Oak Hills (OH) Transvestite!
no, that wasn’t it… the Guy-in-a-Skirt!
no, still not right…The Fighting Scots!
Yeah, that’s it, “Fighting Scots”. We didn’t have a big Scottish tradition in Cincinnati, but our mascot was a guy wearing a kilt. Plus he had his “Bagpipes of Doom”. Ooooo…it was scary.
He got re-worked when I was there. Put in silhouette, it was a guy wearing a tam with a real big arm flexing his muscles. But he was grimacing so he looked real mean.
Not high school, but I went to college at the University of Evansville. Our mascot there was the Purple Aces, the mascot is done up to look like a turn of the century riverboat gambler. Kind of an odd image for a Methodist institution.
This nickname has already been mentioned, Bluejackets, but in rference to the Columbus NHL franchise. Their actual mascot is actually a blue (yellow)jacsket.
Hibbing High School while also having the nickname Bluejackets has an anchor as a symbol, and has used “Popeye” as a mascot at various times over the years. That seems a little strange.
School for Applied Individualized Learning
Tallahassee, FL
Mascot: Dolphins
Colors: Rainbow
We weren’t encouraged to be aggressive.