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