School mascots are an interesting bunch
The Washington Football Team has chosen a new name:
The Commanders
When I saw the name, leaked a day before the announcement thanks to a banner hung prematurely in the stadium, I thought it was fine. A good choice. It makes sense and will only offend fans who preferred the original, racially offensive name.
Frankly, I liked The Washington Football Team better. Rather than going with the traditional kind of choice, why not choose something interesting and original?
About 20% of Washington fans, at least in one poll, actually wanted the team to retain the Washington Football Team.
My people.
Washington has a history of choosing controversial names. The NBA Washington Wizards were originally the Washington Bullets until 1997 when they too, rebranded themselves with a name that was fine but not exactly groundbreaking, either.
The Buffalo Bills have perhaps the most interesting NFL name. For the longest time, I was under the impression that the Bills were named after Wild West showman Buffalo Bill Cody. Though the Bills have occasionally used the image of Bill Cody in their team’s iconography, this is not the origin of the name, nor does the team promote any affiliation with Cody today.
The Bills were named after a previous Buffalo Bills team in the now-defunct All-American Football Conference. That Buffalo Bills team ultimately merged with the Cleveland Browns in 1950, leaving the name Buffalo Bills available for the current iteration of the team.
That original AAFC Buffalo Bills team was named for a young male bison, which is commonly referred to as a billy. The name was chosen via a contest run by the team that was won by a man named Bill Keenan.
Did you follow that?
The Buffalo Bills were named by a guy named Bill who suggested the name Bills.
Bill suggested Bills.
No one thought that this choice might have been slightly self serving?
I think the naming of a team is a remarkable opportunity to do something surprising and utterly original. In professional sports, this is rarely done, but in college and especially in high school, teams sometimes have more fun with their names. A few of my favorite include:
The Avon Old Farms Winged Beavers
Miss Porter’s School Fighting Daises
Poca High School Poca Dots
David Henry Hickman High School Kewpies
Watersmeet Nimrods
Blooming Prairie Awesome Blossoms
Polo Community High School Polo Marcos
Teutopolis High School Wooden Shoes
The saddest team name that I’m aware of goes to the the Centralia High School Orphans.
The worst name goes to the Williamsport Area High School Millionaires. The name alone would make me want to punch their quarterback or point guard in the mouth.
Perhaps the oddest name that I know is the Richland Bombers.
Richland is home to the Hanford nuclear site, which supplied plutonium for the nuclear bomb detonated over Nagasaki. The team’s symbol is a mushroom cloud.
Presumably the same mushroom cloud that killed 80.000 Japanese civilians.
Student chants have included “Nuke ’em ’til they glow!” and “Proud of the cloud!”
I admittedly like surprising and original team names, but even I have my limits.
