Lions, Tigers, and Bears? No thanks, I say.
A sports team's mascot serves many functions. At the core, they all serve to unite a group together under one common name, from pee wee baseball to professional teams. In the 1930s and 1940s, high schools across the country began picking up nicknames for their teams. At the time, many simply replicated a college or professional mascot. The best high school mascots, though, came from local or historical significance. These are the most memorable. They're more likely to make you scratch your head and wonder, "Why in the world would a team name themselves the Irrigators?" (Newell High School, SD - a farming community). In Illinois, there's a wide variety of memorable mascots, which is a staple of many Midwestern small towns, especially. Roxana High School Shells athletic facilities - Copyright roxanashells.com, 2023 First, the statistics I spent over a year researching and compiling a spreadsheet of every high school in the country . Here are some of the statistic...