Nearly every high school nickname in Illinois, and across the country, is a product of a local history. Your nickname, blandly innocuous or a 300-year-old derogatory insult toward indigenous people, is not special. More than 30 schools in Illinois currently claim Native American-related nicknames. There are also 36 schools that are Eagles, 29 that are Bulldogs and 29 that are Tigers…
Heritage and lore are often behind nicknames: Outside Champaign, the Bunnies of Fisher Jr./Sr. High School took their name from a century-old tradition, when players carried rabbit-feet. The DeKalb Barbs nod to DeKalb as the origin of barbed wire. In Brighton, Southwestern High School — honoring the area’s Native background without making a whole group of people a caricature — are Piasa Birds, a reference to the mythical creatures found painted into cliffs on the nearby Mississippi River.
Some of the best Illinois nicknames play off a town’s industry: The Rochelle Hubs honor Rochelle’s history as a travel junction, where rail lines and several interstates converge. The Cornjerkers of Hoopeston — home of the National Sweetcorn Festival — is another example of a team turning an insult (here, against corn farmers) into a point of pride. There’s a similarly defiant streak about Farmington Farmers and Coal City Coalers.
Discussions of changing the mascot often invoke this history:
“My first death threat I ever got as a legislator was after I filed that first mascot bill,” West said. “You hear, ‘If I see you crossing the street, I promise to forget how to use my brakes.’ My goodness — over a mascot! You are coming for their traditions, they say. Tradition is always the main argument. Finances too — how much it will cost to get new uniforms and so on. But the energy, and anger, in these conversations is about history.”
Local history is important to many communities. But there are also plenty of moments in history where communities make decisions to go different directions. As they consider external pressures and internal pressures, communities come together and discuss how they would like to respond. My research considered decisions about development but this could also apply to mascots. Have the times changed? How do newer residents in a community feel? What is the broader purpose of schools? The discussion may be about the name of the high school names bu tit likely invokes broader questions about how communities think about themselves and the world around them.
Of the examples of high school mascots provided in the article, the names highlighting a local industry are intriguing. What might this look like in the twenty-first century? The Office Parks? The Hospitalists? The Data Centers or Warehousers? The Drivers? New traditions could begin with names fitting more recent work and industry patterns.
Legally Sociable 