When I was a kid in central Alabama, I used to feel sorry for the students at Sidney Lanier High School in Montgomery. While other teams had the bobcats, cougars, wolves, etc., their football team was “the Poets”. “IT’S THE BEARS VERSUS THE POETS!” always formed images of poor blind Milton stumbling over clubfooted Byron while pitifully trying to scramble away from a raging she-grizzly. Yep, that was the worst idea Montgomery could have chosen for a mascot… or was it?
Now Montgomery, desperate to be relieved of its incredible budgetary woes (kids in public schools have to bring their own toilet paper and all extracurricular activities have been temporarily suspended due to lack of funds [though thank God that lottery failed to pass]), has decided to ignore all cogent advice by paying millions for a minor league baseball team. After a year of considering all possible mascots (“the Fatty Acids”, “the Schizophrenic Crack Whores”, “the Blunt Objects”, “the Chippewa Maidens”) finally found the stupidest one yet “thunk up”:
To my knowledge it’ll be the only team in the south named for a carbohydrate. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, they added a second mascot:
Big Mo, who has a pad of butter for his tongue. (Apparently, the city fathers aren’t familiar that “Mo” is slang for hoMO with the kiddies today.
So what would be your vote for dummest mascot? (Generally speaking, I would never name a mascot after an inanimate object, an animal low on the food chain, or anything really inbred.)
My high school mascot was the Pioneers. While not the stupidest mascot every, it is certainly one of the least intimidating. Think about it. Tigers? They’ll claw you up and then eat you! War Eagles? They’ll dive on you and rip out your eyeballs with their talons! Playing the Bears? Mauling is in your future! But the Pioneers? What are they going to do? Build a house and start a family?
I hail from good ol’ UC Davis. Our team has always been the Aggies, but our mascot used to be a mustang, because mustangs are cool, I guess. Then, for some reason, it became necessary to choose a new mascot. There were several option, my favorite being the cow (hey, cows are just cool). The possibility of having a fistulated mascot appealed to me. Instead, our mascot became the “Aggie”. What the hell is an aggie? Nobody seemed to know, though it apparently had something to do with farming. It ended up being, basically, a really goofy looking farmer.
Of course, this happened shortly before I graduated, so I don’t know if they stuck with it, or if the gayitude of the Aggie mascot struck somebody, and they came up with something that looked as if it could actually put up a fight.
Anyway, the Aggie wasn’t nearly as pathetic as some of the other mascots I’m reading about here, but it was pretty non-threatening, especially when compared to our chief rival, the Sac State Hornets.
The Stanford Tree. OK, they can be the cardinal (color) or the cardinal (bird) but at football games, a guy in a tree suit shows up.
Hey, < hijack > can anyone tell me what a Hoosier is? I mean, I know that’s what people in Indiana are called, but what exactly is a Hoosier?! Is it an animal/mineral/vegetable?
This thread wouldn’t be complete without mentioning the Fighting Banana Slugs of the University of California, Santa Cruz
However, my favorite has to be the Fighting Missionaries of Whitman College if only because I’d love to hear the announcer at one of their games say “and now to introduce the Missionary position players…”
Well there is the Penn Quakers. Not exactly the fiercest group imaginable. IN fact I think they even have a cheer that is something like, “Go! Win! Fight!..Quakers?”
AAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHH!!! Kill the Crab!!! Kill NDP for bringing it up!!! KILL KILL KILL!!!
(For those not in the know, this is pretty much the standard reaction whenever anyone mentions that Crab. They decided to introduce him when the Giants were buried in the cellar, and his happy demeanor caused everyone to instantly despise him. They brought him out of retirement when they were saying goodbye to Candlestick with various tributes, and the crowd had the exact same reaction).
Are we talking worst Mascot, or worst Sports team nickname?
Worst mascot has gotta be Youppi, the Montreal Expos…uh…whatever it is.
Worst team nickname - I gotta go with the Fighting Irish. Why don’t they ever get in trouble for that one? Why not just call them the Drunken Fighting Potato-Eatin’ Stinkin’ Irish? The logo does little to dispel the image they’re trying to convey. All that’s missing are some bubbles over his head, or a bottle with “XXX” printed on it sticking out of his pocket.
Washburn University of Topeka Kansas was founded in a small way in 1865 by the Congregationalist church, as Lincoln College.(for the president.) But just a few years later there were money woes and on a fundraising journey back East they hit up one Ichabod Washburn, who donated $25000 to the school. He died less than a year later so he never saw the place.
Anyhoo, they renamed the school Washburn College, later to become a university. When sports teams became a big deal, Yeah, you guessed it, they named the teams/ mascot as The Ichabod. More on it can be found here:
