Mascot Mania

Arkansas schools let their spirit animals (and goblins) roar

When it comes to high school mascots, dogs and cats have overrun our state. Arkansas has more bulldogs than the Westminster Kennel Club, but panthers outnumber all mascots. Ironically, when most high schools first adopted mascots in the 1920s, hunters and trappers were eradicating the state’s panther population. Here’s a quick look at some of our more unique mascots and their origins:

DARDANELLE SAND LIZARDS

A century ago, Dardanelle played its home football games about a mile from the banks of the Arkansas River. An opposing coach was not impressed, calling the field, “a bunch of sand, fit only for a lizard,” says Sand Lizards Foundation founder and 1970 graduate Tom Shay. Known simply as the “football boys” before, Dardanelle turned mockery into mascot in 1924 as the red-clad Sand Lizards. Skinks, which belong to the lizard family, abound in the Arkansas River Valley, but you must travel to Europe, Mongolia or northwest China to find a genuine sand lizard.

OZARK HILLBILLIES

Starting in grade school, Ozark students shout the battle cry: H.P.R.D.! Hillbilly Pride Runs Deep since 1935 after a coach at Ft. Smith’s St. Anne’s Academy (closed in 1973) referred to the Ozark Bulldogs as “hillbillies and drunkards,” according to former Ozark history teacher Norman Powell. The purple and gold Ozark Hillbillies initially borrowed uniforms from the Mountaineers of then College of the Ozarks in Clarksville. Ozark is the only school in America with a living, breathing Hillbilly mascot with former pastor Ted Darling playing the shotgun-totin’ Mr. Hillbilly since 1996.

MONTICELLO BILLIES

Before 1962, Ozark was not the only school in Arkansas with Hillbillies as its nickname. While Monticello’s Billy Goat mascot dates to 1915, the high school teams were named for the “hill people” who lived on or around four prominent hills in northern Drew County where the Delta meets timberland, says Blair Brown, Monticello’s athletic director and fifth-generation resident. In a clever shift from the hillbilly stereotype created by the radio comedy “Lum and Abner,” Monticello dropped the “hill” from hillbillies in 1962 and has since competed as the blue and white Billies.

NASHVILLE SCRAPPERS

The school hired E.T. Moody in 1921 as a teacher and football coach, and his wife, Louise, kept the football boys hydrated at practice with lemonade and water. She often worried they were too small but noted they were scrappy, and the Scrappers nickname was born. Louise also chose the school’s orange and black colors, but Nashville’s logo was simply an “N” on jerseys and head gear until 1985 when football coach Gary Segrest, a Big Foot enthusiast and Dallas Cowboys fan, toyed with a logo. He and assistant coach Bunch Nichols (current athletic director) superimposed an “S” on a star for what would quickly evolve into its current form.

FORDYCE REDBUGS

Perhaps no Arkansas town has a greater reputation for its unique traditions than Fordyce, home of legendary football players, Alabama coach Paul “Bear” Bryant and railroad tracks (originally the famous Cotton Belt line) that practically run through the north end zone. In 1925, the Fordyce Lumber Company donated land for the field, recruiting local men and football boys to clear it. Fordyce newspaper reporter Willard Clary noted that redbugs (chiggers) were “tearing up” the crew and suggested Redbugs as a mascot. A century later, Redbug Field at Paul “Bear” Bryant Stadium remains the home of the Fordyce Redbugs.

HARRISON GOLDEN GOBLINS

Soon after Clary tagged Fordyce the Redbugs, a high school senior journalist at Harrison, Tom Millard, titled the school’s first newspaper in October 1926 as The Goblin. Harrison’s championship basketball team, formerly the Yellow Jackets, promptly adopted the Goblin mascot which spread to the entire school, says Goblin historian Evan Cowling. The original Goblin was a clownish, yellow imp with pointy ears, long nose and wide grin. The Goblin smiled for 40 years but turned psychedelic in 1968. It was the first of the “mean” Goblins, Cowling says, with a red face and yellow hair that popped on Harrison’s navy blue helmets. The face of the Goblin returned to yellow by 1980, although the 1970s apparently took a toll. He was gaunt, losing teeth and showing need of rehab. By 2000, however, the Goblin’s teeth returned.

STUTTGART RICEBIRDS

Until the late ’20s, local newspapers referred to Stuttgart as the “maroons” or “Rice Men,” says Glenn Mosenthin, director of the Grand Prairie Historical Society. The term ricebird can refer to many birds, but in Arkansas County, redwing blackbirds flock to rice fields by the hundreds of thousands. And at the time Stuttgart took Ricebirds as its mascot, black birds would gorge on rice from September to early December during an extended, labor-intensive “cut-and-bundle” harvest. “Not on par with mosquitoes and buffalo gnats, but those birds were a huge nuisance,” says Grant Beckwith with the University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service.

SMACKOVER BUCKAROOS

In his book “Those Smackover Kids,” author Don Lambert writes that William “Red” Humphreys petitioned his superintendent in 1923 to start a high school basketball team, and the Smackover Red Devils took the court. Sawmill owner Sidney Umsted struck oil in 1922, and the town exploded in six months from 90 to 25,000 people. By 1934, however, the oil boom had given way to The Great Depression. The town was melting from 63 days of 100-degree heat in 1934 on the first day of school when the student body changed its school colors and mascot to a black-and-white Buckaroo. Why not roughnecks or wildcatters? Perhaps they were delirious from the heat and/or swayed by the popularity of rodeos, horseback riding and cowboy picture shows at the American Theater.

PINE BLUFF HIGH ZEBRAS

Jefferson County sports historian Jeff Gross says Pine Bluff’s famous stripes likely came before the mascot. One of three theories seems most probable: the 1915 basketball team travelled to Crossett wearing red sweaters with white stripes. Popular athlete Don Quinn suggested the team adopt a nickname based on their sweaters. “We look like convicts or zebras, don’t we?” Quinn said. “Well, we can’t call ourselves convicts, so why not make it zebras?” PBHS colors of crimson and white date to 1909. In 1949, the football jersey stripes were limited to the shoulders, a classic look since.

DIERKS OUTLAWS

Dierks adopted Outlaw as its mascot in the mid-’20s, but not a pistol-flashing desperado. Note the secondary definition for outlaw: an intractable horse, wild, difficult to break. The definition spilled into Dierks’ reputation for breaking the rules by adding men from the lumber mill (and elsewhere) to field a football team. As late as 1936, Russell Peek was the only high school student who started for the Outlaws, says 1976 Dierks alumnus and historian Cotton Cothren, son of 1934 graduate Archie Cothren. The town called a meeting in 1938 to consider changing the mascot (with its unruly stereotype) to the Lumberjacks. High school athletes spoke from the heart. Donald Nunn began to cry but then shouted: “I’d rather play in red long johns and be called outlaws than to play in our new suits and be called Lumberjacks or anything else!” The crowd roared in approval and gave Nunn a standing ovation.

VIOLA LONGHORNS

Relax, Razorback fan. These Longhorns were never connected to the University of Texas. Former Viola teacher and historian Majoria DeShazo said a Viola boys basketball team in the late 1930s chose Longhorns due to the influence of Western novels by Zane Grey. His 1931 novel, The Trail Driver, depicted the challenges of driving thousands of Longhorns from Texas to railheads in Kansas. This remote Class A school district in Fulton County covers 256 square miles after 18 one-room county schools consolidated with Viola from 1930 to 1948. VHS art teacher and 1985 graduate Sharmin Jennings created the school’s current logo.