MaxPreps Mascot Mondays: Washington D.C. high school mascots

Just as important as a school's name and its location is its mascot. Options abound, and some teams go with the commonplace while others go with the truly unique.

In Washington, D.C., there are 33 schools with mascots listed in the MaxPreps database. Listed below are the Top 4 most popular mascot names in Washington, D.C., the mascot names that only one school owns and other mascot facts/stats.

THEY DON'T SELL GATORADE AT WALGREEN'S
No, the athletes at Cardozo do not work behind counters selling you things, and they don't have jobs where they file paperwork all day. Yes, they are clerks (the only ones in the nation), but it goes back to the namesake of the school and some Latin etymology. The school is named for Francis Lewis Cardozo, a clergyman and politician who lived from 1836 to 1903 and also the first African American to hold statewide office. Clergymen were some of the only ones who could read back in the medieval times so they were trusted with writing things down, and that is how the word cleric came to be. Clerks is derived from clerics.

BIG-TIME BOUNDERS
Athletes from Georgetown Day pack a whole lot of hop into a small package. The Mighty Hoppers are grasshoppers with some extra mightiness, but the more you read about grasshoppers, the more you see they already have some pretty mighty attributes. According to bugfacts.net, grasshoppers get to be about 5 inches long and they can leap 20 times the length of their body. If you were to have a 6-foot human who could jump like a grasshopper, that person would cover 120 feet of ground. Also, grasshoppers are small insects that make big noise by rubbing their back legs together to make music. Oh, they can fly, too. Mighty hoppers are pretty mighty indeed.

IDENTITY CRISIS AT McKINLEY TECH
They have an identity crisis at McKinley Tech, so for now we will call them the Trainers. The story, as told by the Washington Post, tells of three different mascot names for the school, which was closed from 1997 to 2004. It all started as the Trainers, which stems from the school's original title as McKinley technical training school, and the mascot logo was Tubal Cain, a biblical and Masonic figure who trained others in works of brass and iron. Since the school was named after President William McKinley, a freemason, it was appropriate. But emphasis on separating church and state brought forth a new mascot name since the Tubal Cain logo wasn't applicable: The Techites. That lasted until the school was closed, and the students voted to be the Phoenix after it reopened. Since the school has Trainers as its name on MaxPreps, consider that the official mascot name.

ROOSEVLET ROUGHRIDERS = A LESSON IN AMERICAN HISTORY
Football teams called the Roughriders are usually famous in Canada (they have two in the CFL) but one school in D.C. also has the name, and it's purely American. The Roosevelt Roughriders get their name from 1st United States Volunteer Cavalry, which fought in the Spanish-American War and had Theodore Roosevelt as the second in command. The Roughriders (or Rough Riders) traveled to Cuba and fought to support the independence effort for the Cubans on the island. They helped pull off some great victories in the war, and they gained noptoriety, and that explains why you can find eight other forms of Roughriders in American high schools.

GREEN WAVES MIGHT BE WAVING GOODBYE
Reports are that Spingarn will be closing soon, and that means the Green Waves will have to wave goodbye. The Green Waves mascot name is held by five other schools in the nation, taking a backseat to the more popular Green Wave mascot name. When Spingarn High goes away (if it ever happens), the alma mater of three amazing basketball players will also fade: Elgin Baylor (NBA Hall of Famer), Dave Bing (NBA Hall of Famer and Detroit's mayor) and Sherman Douglas (an NBA player for 12 years).

TOP 4 MOST POPULAR MASCOT NAMES
# Panthers 4
# Warriors 2
# Eagles 2
# Knights 2
# Denotes mascot name is in America's Top 15

MASCOT NAMES USED BY ONLY 1 SCHOOL

Bengals Bulldogs Cadets *Clerks Colts Crimson Tide

Dragons Falcons Frogs Green Waves Griffins Hawks

Indians Lions *Mighty Hoppers Pride Quakers Ramblers

Red Devils Roughriders Tigers *Trainers Wolves

* Denotes that no other school in America has that mascot name

MASCOT STATS
Most popular mascot name is used by 10 percent of schools.
There are 25 different mascot names for 30 schools.
3 schools have mascot names that no other American school has.
Washington D.C.'s Top 4 features 4 of America's Top 15 mascot names.