10 Of The Most Bizarre School Mascots
Spoiler alert: One of them is literally a penis.
Mascots are a long-standing tradition in American athletics.
Mascots are a way for a school and its students to show their true character. Most frequently, mascots are a way to show the toughness and resolve of an institution's sports teams. Names like "Hawks," "Wolverines" and "Panthers" are great examples of this.
Sometimes, though, schools go against the grain and pick a totally weird (but memorable) mascot. Why? Sometimes there's no explanation. Some schools are just weird and want to break the status quo at every turn.
1. Kewpies - Hickman High School, Columbia, Missouri
This one is remarkably unsettling to me. A kewpie is an extremely creepy doll that resembles a cartoon version of Cupid. Yes, this high school's mascot is a specific brand of doll.
2. Sammy the Slug - University of California Santa Cruz
Sammy has been repping the UCSC Banana Slugs since 1986. Banana slugs were the unofficial mascot years before, though. According to the UCSC website, "The students' embrace of such a lowly creature was their response to the fierce athletic competition fostered at most American universities."
3. Orphans - Centralia High School, Centralia, Illinois
This incredibly offensive mascot name stems from a comment made by a 1940s Chicago sportswriter. When referring to the basketball team, the writer "made the comment that they look like a bunch of orphans, but they sure can play basketball."
4. Speedy the Geoduck - The Evergreen State College, Olympia, Washington
A geoduck is a kind of large, phallic-shaped burrowing clam. Speedy the Geoduck has been repping the team since at least 2006. If you ask me, I'd say they were trying to rip off UC Santa Cruz.
5. Artie the Fighting Artichoke - Scottsdale Community College, Scottsdale, Arizona
Artie came into existence as an act of protest. In order to rebel against the college's over-funding of athletics in the 1970s, the student body decided to become the Fighting Artichokes. They really showed the administration, huh?
6. Charlie Choker - Grays Harbor College, Aberdeen, Washington
He may conjure up images of the Boston Strangler for you, and you'd be right to assume Charlie is very sinister. But it's actually just a case of poor naming and logo design. The choker that Charlie carries is actually a device for carrying downed logs. If you live in the Pacific Northwest, the home of Grays Harbor College (aka logging country), the mascot probably makes a whole lot more sense.
7. The Millionaires - Williamsport Area High School, Williamsport, Pennsylvania
Williamsport, Pennsylvania was once the US city with the most millionaires per capita. While that reveals the logic behind the local high school's mascot, it's still quite strange to be represented athletically by the wealthy elite.
8. The Boll Weevils - University of Arkansas at Monticello
They're apparently also known as the cotton blossoms, but their mascot is, as you can see, a very creepy boll weevil. That's the stuff of nightmares.
9. The Fighting Pickle - University of North Carolina School of the Arts
In what is almost certainly a parody of the culture of collegiate sports—especially because UNCSA has no official athletics teams—the arts school has gone by The Pickles (and more descriptively the "Fighting" Pickles) since at least 1972. In 2012, Cheetos officially named it the nation's number-one cheesiest mascot.
But the real question remains: Does Cheetos know about Scotie the Nads?
10. Scrotie the Nads - Rhode Island School of Design
I swear to you, this is a real thing. Scrotie's the unofficial mascot of RISD, but he regularly shows up at hockey games and all other kinds of events. The chant is, naturally, "Goooo Nads!" The basketball team goes by "Balls," but it's pretty clear from the logo what they're really representing.