Irrigators – Newell (SD) High School

Well, if there’s anything that’s gonna strike fear into the hearts of your opponents, it’s gonna be “a person or company who uses water supplied to their land to help crops and plants grow.” I mean, I’m trembling in fear here just typing in those words.

Newell is in the central western part of the state, almost on the Wyoming border. It has not quite 600 folks, and dates back to 1910. They like to call themselves the Nation’s Sheep Capital.

The town was named after FH Newell, head of the Unites States Reclimation Service (which “oversees water resource management, specifically as it applies to the oversight and operation of the diversion, delivery, and storage projects that it has built throughout the western United States.”). Quite a prolific author, he penned Agriculture by Irrigation (1894), Irrigation in the United States (1902), Principles of Irrigation Engineering (1913), Irrigation Management (1916), and many more.

So, I guess it make some sense to call the local team the Irrigators. Not a lot of sense, but hey … Thankfully, it sounds like locals call them the Gators for short.

The school dates back to 1922. Someone on Wikipedia called it “the most imposing structure in Newell … [and an] outstanding example of the English Vernacular Revival.”

To me, it kinda just looks like a big, brown box

They’ve only got 75 students in toto. Not sure how they can field any teams. Here, for example, is the entire senior class of 2022:

They do, though, have a mascot … an extremely lame mascot.

Imps - Cary (NC) High School

We’re number one!  We’re number one!  We’re number one!  

Yup, the Cary Imps are the reigning winners of the 2023 Sports Illustrated High School Fan National annual mascot competition. Go Imps!

Cary is part of the Research Triangle Park, in North Carolina. It’s got about 180,000 people, and includes SAS, Lockheed Martin, Xerox, Epic Games, and Garmin among its employers. This tech hub includes plenty of replants, and is jokingly referred to as the “Containment Area for Relocated Yankees” by natives.

The high school dates back to 1896, when it was private. In 1907, it went public, becoming the first public high school in the state. It has about 2,100 students, and is known for its band & wrestling team. Wikipedia lists 20 alumni, only one I’ve heard of. 

The name? It’s after the JV team for the Duke Blue Devils, the Blue Imps, and dates back to the 1930s. To honor another nearby university, the team was originally called the White Imps, after UNC’s then White Phantoms (now, of course, the Tar Heels). 

The color was dropped eventually. Not sure where the green came from.

I’m pretty sure I saw these guys play once. I can’t remember, though, if it was in basketball, football, baseball, or wrestling

Hippos – Hutto (TX) High School

Alliterative, rhyming, short, sweet … This one’s a winner.

Hutto’s a town of 28,000 (and growing!), 20 miles northeast of Austin. It dates back to 1855, and was originally a railroad town. It’s named after John Hutto, who provided the initial land.

The high school has 1,850 students and 120 teachers. They’ve won state titles in tennis and volleyball. Alumni include 2 NFL players.

They feature this rather odd mascot. 

There are several possibilities with this one:

• A hippo broke loose from a circus train in town
• A comment from an opposing coach on Hutto’s beefy football players 
• The Hippodrome Theatre
• Hippo Size Soda Water

It’s said to date back to 1923.

The town has really taken the hippo theme to heart. 

There are supposedly over 1,000 concrete statues (with a guide to them all right here). The biggest is Henrietta, weighing in at 14,000 lbs.

Hoboes – Laurel Hill (FL) School

One of my favorite scenes in the baseball classic Bull Durham is when the manager berates his players for their seeming lack of effort:

Skip: You guys. You lollygag the ball around the infield. You lollygag your way down to first. You lollygag in and out of the dugout. You know what that makes you? Larry!

Larry: Lollygaggers!

Skip: Lollygaggers.

Sounds like something very similar happened down at the Laurel Hill School, in Florida. Seems basketball coach Rex Wright was upset with his players for not showing more effort, calling them hoboes, instead of lollygaggers. The team just so happened to be looking for a mascot at the time, so the name stuck.

Another theory is that the name simply came from the town’s railroad history, especially between the wars (i.e., the 1920s and ‘30s), when there were indeed many hoboes in the area. And a final theory comes from Cracked.com: “because school administrators wish to furnish their students with realistic expectations for the future.”

However it may be, the school is quick to point out that, “Unlike tramps or bums, the hoboes are usually very resourceful, self-reliant and appreciative people. They display the quiet pride that comes from self-confidence and the secure knowledge that they control their own destiny." Sure.

Laurel Hill is in the Panhandle, practically in Alabama. The town of 600 dates back to 1821, when it was known as Almirante. And, yes, they do have an annual hobo festival.

The school goes from K-12 and has about 450 students total. In spite of the name, it is indeed a public school.

And this one, in East Setauket NY, is private

And, of course, they have a mascot. In fact, they have two!

The first is a real person, local pastor Mike McVey, who’s been doing it for over 20 years.

The second is his grandson, who dons a rather scary homemade outfit.

You can check out the latter busting some moves on YouTube. 

The school also has their own song … sort of. You can check that out right here.