Woodchucks – St John (ND) High School

“And here they are, ladies and gentlemen! Let’s have a big round of applause as your St John Woodchucks waddle onto the field.”

St John is a town of 320 people, just south of the Canadian border. Just south of the town is the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation. Both town and reservation date back to 1882. 

Not too surprisingly, the high school is 97% Native American. With only 127 students, they somehow manage to field 8 teams over 6 sports, including a football team (9-man, of course)!

Whence the woodchuck? Well, previously, the team was known as the Zephyrs. Seeing as a “zephyr” is a “soft, blowing breeze,” it seems like they were pretty ripe for a mascot redo.

Like a tiger, or a bulldog, or an eagle … Anything other than a woodchuck.

Nevertheless, the mascot was the winner in a student vote organized way back in 1948. The school claims that the woodchuck is “a unique animal with a fighting spirit that was a good representation of the Turtle Mountains area.”

Sure it is.

The real mascot actually looks like this:

Wildkits – Evanston Township (IL) High School

Surely, you mean “wildcats” “Kits” sound like “kittens.”

Which, surprisingly, is exactly what was intended. Turns out Evanston is host to another school, Northwestern Univ., and their mascot is the Wildcat. (Kind of like the Tarbabes, if you remember them.)

Evanston is a suburb of Chicago, on the North Shore. It dates back to just before the Civil War, and currently has about 78,000 people. 

The high school itself dates back to the 1870s, and today has not quite 3,600 students. The school has over 1M sq. ft., the largest square footage of any HS in the country. Indeed, it looks like a college campus.

With such a large student body, it’s probably not too surprising that ETHS hosts 100 teams in 31 sports. They’ve won 26 state championships (including badminton & table tennis!). 

But not girls flag football, at least yet

The actual, on-field mascot is called Willie the Wildcat. Which is exactly the same as Northwestern’s.

Whirlies – Grimsley (NC) High School

The dictionary definition – adj. informal, “spinning or whirling” – isn’t helping us here very much.

Would you believe, though, that it’s actually short for “whirlwind”? Indeed, the team started out as the Purple Whirlwind, holding on to that nickname from 1920 to 1951. The evolution to Whirlies came from a number of possible sources:

• A simple nickname
• A shortened form used in newspaper titles
• A form used by journalists for elegant variation

An additional impetus was the team’s changing their colors from purple, which was hard to source, to navy blue.

The school itself was originally called Greensboro High School, and dates all the way back to 1899.  The name was changed in 1962 to honor original school superintendent George A. Grimsley. It also helped to distinguish it from what are now 4 high schools within the city limits.

It’s a large school, with over 1,900 students. Wikipedia lists 40 famous alumni, but I’ve heard of only one. Unfortunately, he’s a genuine nut case.

On the athletic side, the school has won more NC state championships than any other. Their first, for football, goes all the way back to 1907.

Their latest was in 2020-21

The actual, physical, on-field mascot is named Whirligig.

I probably don’t need to say much about Greensboro. With a population of 300,000, it’s the 3^rd largest city in NC.

Watchdogs – Beresford (SD) High School

Not exactly sure what they’re watching ...

Beresford is a town of 2,100, a little south of Sioux City. It dates back to 1873, and was originally called Paris. 

The name was later changed to honor Lord Charles Beresford, a British admiral. If that sounds a bit odd, maybe it would be helpful to know that English capitalists invested heavily in the area.

The town lists 5 notable people, including 1 governor (but, alas, no admirals). 

Beresford High School has 220 students, and features 6 sports. Baseball appears to be the only major sport that is missing.

Now, back to those watchdogs... Turns out the team was originally called the bulldogs. And that – according to Google AI, at least – was from a fan who frequently brought a bulldog named Muggles to the games.

The name was later changed to “watchdogs” to distinguish the team from all the other bulldogs out there. Indeed, bulldogs are the 4th most popular mascot in the country. Ironically, the physical manifestation of the Beresford mascot is … a bulldog.

The actual, physical, on-field mascot is named Roger, after another longtime fan.

Not sure if that’s the real Roger on the left

Wardens – Powell County High School (Deer Lodge, MT)

Well, I suppose they could’ve been the Criminals instead.

Deer Lodge is a city of 3,000 in a very central location in western Montana. It’s about an hour from the capital, Helena, about 30 minutes up I-90 from Butte & about 25 miles from Anaconda. 

Such a central location made the place ideal for the state hospital and also for the state prison. I guess Wardens would describe the head honcho at both places. 

Deer Lodge has 2 other notable sites:

• Grant-Kohrs Ranch, dating back to the days of the cattle barons
• The Old Prison, which also includes a theatre, cars, antiques, and an old locomotive

Deer Lodge was also important to Native Americans, a stop on the Lewis & Clark Expedition, and a railroad and mining center.

The city is the county seat of Powell County, which itself has a population of almost 7,000. Some interestingly named communities in the county include Racetrack, Carpenters Bar & Wall City.

The high school dates back to 1903. Currently, it has about 185 students.  

It won its first (and only) state championship in 2005, in golf. It looks like it offers 10 different sports. Girls teams are, invariably, called the Lady Wardens.

Hard to believe, but you can actually get a Warden figurine online (Custom Period Costume Mascots):

Wamps – Braintree (MA) High School

Now, Wamps are bad enough. Put that together with Braintree, though …

So, what is a wamp? Well, it sounds like it:

• “Refers to a solution stack for the Microsoft Windows operating system”
• “Helps you find profitable products to sell on Walmart with smart, data-driven insights—powered by SellerAmp and tailored for success in the Walmart marketplace”
• “Is the friendly mini painting forum for all painting abilities”
• Stands for the Wisconsin Association of Meat Processors
• Are “web-footed creatures that are ‘spawned’ in dead cities and roam the graveyards of the upper regions of the Dreamlands” [in HP Lovecraft’s The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath]

Now, “Wamp” is also short for Wompatuck, a chief of the Massachusett tribe. And that’s where this particular Wamp came from.

Now, what is a Braintree? Easy. It’s a city of 39,000, just south of Boston. It dates back to 1640, and is named after Braintree, England (which simply means “Branoc’s tree”). It’s primarily known for its connection with the Founding Fathers, especially the Adams family. It was also the site of the murders that led to the Sacco & Vanzetti trial.

They were also in the LLWS this year

The high school dates back to 1858, and currently has about 1,675 students. Its teams have won state championships in girls soccer, girls basketball & dance. Notable people include the usual athletes and politicians, as well as Amy Bishop, a Harvard PhD and college professsor who opened fire at a department meeting, killing 3.

Seeing as we’re talking about the most liberal state in the nation, it shouldn’t be too surprising that the school is thinking about changing their mascot. Though actually voted through in 2020, the Wamps are still around, albeit with a new logo.

Voks – Lanier High School (San Antonio TX)

Hey, an AI hallucination:

Doing a little more traditional research, I found out that the mascot comes from Lanier being a vocational high school. 

Now, what does a Vok look like exactly? Well, it appears AI got it right this time: “The mascot is often a personified gear, emphasizing unity and strength through participation in the school community”:

Or even more scarily:

Lanier is actually Sidney Lanier, the Confederate poet. And, yes, there was such a thing as a Confederate poet. 

He’s actually a pretty interesting fellow. War-wise, he served as a private in the Confederate army, worked on a blockade runner, and was captured & imprisoned (catching the TB that would take his life at age 39). In addition, he was very musical (as flautist, organist & composer) and was also a teacher (including at Johns Hopkins).

Interestingly, he is the namesake of 14 schools (including 1 college), a couple of lakes, a county, an island, a bridge, a scholarship at UCLA, and lots more.

The high school dates back to 1915. Currently, it has about 1,550 students, and is 95% Latino. As for that last bit, it was the first high school in the US to offer classes in mariachi music.

Also along those same lines, the school’s 1939 boys basketball team made some history by beating the local all-white high school for the city championship. Their star was all of 5’1”.

San Antonio’s big enough to have its own NBA team, so I won’t say any more about it.

And also this place