Better Than the Bears

While in high school we students can get very defensive of our mascots. Mascots are often a group of people of historic significance for the area or animals that are or were indigenous to the area, but some seem to be chosen for no good reason at all.

I think the most common of all mascot animals has to be the bear. Everywhere I go stadiums, schools and school banners are emblazoned with the image of a bear. Even when a team’s mascot has nothing to do with a bear it seems the poor animal is dragged into being the animal representation.
Take the Utah Jazz, for instance. I’m not sure what a “jazz” is, but I’m fairly confident it’s not a bear, which is what it now is. In high school, our mascot was an insect. We were the wasps. Preparing for big games, the cheerleaders would make a large number of posters with very antagonizing phrases (heavy sarcasm) on them like “Sting ‘em, Wasps”. I also felt a little silly riding into another town, flags and school banners all with the very threatening (also heavy sarcasm) animal stitched in black and gold waving in the wind. Even then, as a student, I knew we were really scraping the bottom of the barrel when we came up with that one, but I did appreciate the fact that we didn’t choose to be the Bruins or the Bears.