As you probably already know, Sturgis is famous for a yearly motorcycle rally. Hard to believe, but the town of 7,000 swells to almost half a million during Bike Week.
Given that, I was thinking the mascot would be more like the Hell’s Angels, Devil’s Disciples, Sons of Satan, or something nice and gang-y like that.
Whence Scoopers? Well, we’ve got a couple of possibilities.
My old friend Google AI tells me that, “The nickname ‘Scoopers’ originated in the late 1800s when cavalrymen stationed at nearby Fort Meade referred to Sturgis as ‘Scooptown,’ claiming the merchants ‘scooped’ them every payday.”
Yahoo!Sports has a slightly different take: “Sturgis was originally an off-site encampment for a number of prospectors at nearby Deadwood, and they often rolled into town to partake in Sturgis' benefits. Namely, scoopers who would scoop money out of the prospectors pockets in exchange for, well, you know.”
Sports Illustrated throws out a third theory. In this one, the soldiers would get so drunk that they would have to be scooped off the streets.
I’m not sure any of those is all that inspiring, Maybe they should just go with the Death Demons, or Warlocks from Hell, or something else like that.
Interestingly, it sounds like scooping predated the fort, with Sturgis being originally called Scooptown. Don’t exactly know where to go with that one.
It doesn’t look like Sturgis is famous for much other than those bikers. Wikipedia lists 13 “notable people” – including Bobby Buntrock, Pappy Hoel, and Poker Alice – but I’m afraid I haven’t heard of any of them.
Something to do with the Star-Spangled Banner
As for the school, they’ve got a little over 800 students. They field 8 sports, all of them pretty standard.
It is indeed brown
Their mascot is called Scooper Sam. Here’s a little different version than the one at the top: