September 6, 2006
Of Tigers, Bulldogs & Bunnies?

My wife’s a Toreador.  Me?  A Viking.  How about you? 

September is upon us, bringing with it the high school “Are You Ready For Some Football?” season.  Here in “Happy Valley” it’s Tigers, Warriors, Wildcats and Bulldogs doing battle but across our nation there are schools featuring highly unusual nicknames taking the field. 

Does anyone ever forget the name of his or her school team?  Hardly.  Even the most gentle of folk get their dander up should their mascot be disparaged.   This lesson was learned the hard way decades ago on the Iowa State Campus.  After much finagling, a date was arranged with lovely freshmen Theta from Omaha.  After the usual, “What’s your major?” and “How do you like Ames?” type questions, I asked where she went to high school?  “Benson High, Omaha’s best” she proudly replied.  “So were you Lions, Bears or Grizzlies?” I inquired.  “We were the Bunnies.” “The what?” I laughed. “We were the Fighting Benson Bunnies.”   Surely she was making this up. “Oh c’mon, nobody calls themselves the Fighting Bunnies.  What were you really?”  “The Bunnies” she answered her face turning red in anger.  I changed the subject but it was too late and though I called many times, never again was the lovely Theta available for a second get together. 

Decades later the question still lingers, how does anyone look across the line of scrimmage and not giggle knowing the opposing linebacker is a “Fighting Bunny” 

I grew up in Illinois and we had strange high school names like the Effingham Flaming Hearts, the Freeport Pretzels, the Cobden Appleknockers, the DeKalb Barbs (barb wire was invented in DeKalb and Cindy Crawford was once a Barb cheerleader), Centralia High School was known as the Orphans and one year the state champions in basketball were the Hebron Little Giants.  Really Big Midgets was already taken? 

No Iowa high school had a stranger name than my wife’s alma mater, the Boone Toreador’s.  As a cheerleader, she claimed it took most of half time for the crowd to spell out the letters and it was even worse at the girl’s game because, as was the custom then, the girl’s team were the Toreador-ettes.  Everly, Iowa’s high school team was nicknamed the Cattlefeeders and when their girls’ team played in the state tournament the Des Moines Register headline read, “Cattlefeeder-ettes Roll.”  

Every spring JUCO comes to Junction and the tourney’s all time number one nickname has to be Arizona’s Scottsdale Community College Fighting Artichokes. 

Colorado schools don’t feature many unusual nicknames.  Aspen Skiers is by far the best moniker on the Western Slope but across our Centennial State you’ll find the Wheat Ridge Farmers, unusual only because they’re located in the middle of the Denver burbs, the Rocky Ford Meloneers and everyone’s favorite, the Brush Beetdiggers. 

Sometime back ESPN compiled the Top Ten school nicknames.  The Beetdiggers finished second beating out the Nimrods of Watersmeet, Mi., the Winslow, Az. Squirrels, the Stuyvesant Peglegs of New York City (Peter Stuyvesant, the Big Apples founding father, had a wooden leg), the Poca, WV Dots while the winner was Cairo, Georgia’s Syrupmakers. 

Team names on the Western Slope are fairly mundane with Tigers (GJ) playing Tigers (Cortez) and Bulldogs (Palisade) facing off against Bulldogs (Craig).  But no matter how un-original the school nickname, alums never have to endure the psychological trauma occurring when one is forced to look a stranger in the eye and admit, “I was a Fighting Bunny.”