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Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Take 10: Best-EVER historic team names
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the nicknames that our schools have been giving themselves are getting so lame that’s it’s become a state embarrassment.
Among the 32 public high schools that opened in this decade, only two were clever enough to conjure up a nickname that wasn’t already taken. Hats off to the Sonoraville Phoenix and the Creekview Grizzlies. Three new schools - Union Grove, Miller Grove and West Forsyth - are Wolverines. Do we have wolverines in Georgia? * I don’t get it.
Three more new schools are the Lions - MLK, Peachtree Ridge and Luella. We can’t all be Lions. They should have a playoff for it. Mundy’s Mill and Alcovy decided to be Tigers - like 19 other teams in Georgia. Are we still teaching imagination in the 21st Century? In my day, we didn’t borrow nicknames. We chose something you’d never heard about and were left very scared or just shaking your head. And we liked it.
Here are the best 11 nicknames in Georgia history, all belonging to schools that have closed but should be held up as models. Why 11? If you have to ask, your team’s nickname is probably the Eagles.
11: Ocilla Orphans — There was a time when children were so mean in Ocilla that their parents abandoned them out of fear, thus the name Orphans. You didn’t risk bringing up the subject when you played them. They were not ashamed of it, but they played with a chip on their shoulders, and you didn’t provoke them. The name Orphans had to be given up because it was offensive and politically incorrect. So now, Ocilla’s predecessor school, Irwin County, is called the Indians.
10: Commercial Typists — This Atlanta school that closed in 1947 had the greatest sand-bagging nickname in history. Typists? Yep, and you better believe they could type. They’d kick butt and take names on a typewriter at 82 words per minute. But let’s not kid anybody. Commercial had terrible football teams. But the Typists were proud of what they could do. If you’ve seen how these kids act when they score touchdowns, you know the lack of pretension is a lost art in high school football today.
9: Sparta Saints — Sparta, a school for whites in Hancock County before desegregation, was in Sanderville’s region for many years, and it was Sparta’s only recourse to have a nickname that could contend with the dreaded Satans. Those Satans-vs.-Saints matchups were battles for eternity in those days. Today, Cedar Grove is called the Saints, but they got it from the New Orleans Saints. The Sparta Saints thought of it first, and the NFL should be paying royalties.
8: Lanier Poets — This was Macon’s most famous school through 1969, when consolidation turned it into Central High and the Chargers. The Chargers are OK, but the great thing about being a Poet was that when Lanier (as in Sidney, author of “Song of the Chattahoochee,” the storied ode to Georgia’s most hallowed river) won those state titles in the ’30s and ’40s in both football and basketball, they could beat their chests and say, ”We’re better athletes, and we’re poets, too!” It’s hard to argue with that.
7: Corry Roosters — It’s pretty sorry for any high school to name itself the Gamecocks. First, that’s a college team’s name. Second, well, if you have to be given more obvious reasons why that’s a terrible high school nickname, then your school is probably named the Longhorns or the Hoyas. But a rooster? Now that’s a mascot, and Corry, the Greene County school for African-Americans before integration, was right on with this. Roosters are brimming with pride and confidence, even if they are chickens. Not sure if Corry called its girls teams the Roosters. You wouldn’t want to call them the Hens. The Lady Roosters? That was the one drawback to this nickname.
6: Doerun Deer — The Deer of Colquitt County never played football or this name would be higher on the list. Imagine the helmets: Not Rams horns, but deer antlers! I like it. And the girls teams were called the Does. It’s just fun to say: The Doerun Deer and the Doerun Does. You could read it backward to find hidden meaning way before the Beatles.
5: Montezuma Aztecs — Football coaches are always talking about sacrifice. It’s that BIG TEAM/little me thing that makes the difference in winning and losing so many times. So what better mascot to extol the virtues of sacrifice than the Aztecs? The real Aztecs practiced human sacrifice. Now that’s commitment, and this Macon County school had it. Now, Macon County High is just called the Bulldogs. There are 15 other Bulldogs and one Bulldogg among Georgia mascots. It needs to stop.
4: Arlington Travelers — The school’s mascot was named for Robert E. Lee’s horse, Traveller. Arlington, a school in Calhoun County, misspelled it, but, hey, this was football, and if you didn’t dare make an issue of it. This was a school of war horses, not spellers. Calhoun County is now the Cougars, like five other Georgia schools. And I’ll guarantee you this: Traveller, er, Traveler, was much more loyal and brave than any Cougar was.
3: Dasher Bible Ducks — Not sure if they were the Bible Ducks, or the Ducks of Dasher Bible. But the goal of education is to get you thinking, and this Valdosta school was committed to that. Names like Wildcats and Vikings nip fresh thinking in the bud.
2: Cornelia Appleknockers — When you played this Habersham County school, you had to secure your chin strap and gird your loins because you just knew by the nickname Appleknockers that Cornelia was a team that could knock more than apples off your tree. Habersham Central is now the Raiders, like 13 other schools in Georgia. There are a lot of hardened Appleknockers rolling in their graves about that.
1: Sandersville Satans — There are 18 teams in Georgia that are Red Devils, Blue Devils or Screaming Devils. There are so many Devils that nobody is scared of a devil any more. Oooh, the Blue Devils, I’m afraid! Not. If you really want to scare somebody, tell ‘em Satan is coming to town. And he’s bringing Beelzebub. Now that’s a mascot.
Eleven most common and therefore worst Georgia nicknames:
Tigers (21), Panthers (18), Eagles (17), Bulldogs (15), Indians (15), Wildcats (15), Raiders (14), Trojans (13), Patriots (11), Blue Devils (10), Warriors (10)
Eleven best Georgia nicknames, all unique:
Atom Smashers (Johnson of Savannah), Battle Creek Warriors (Tattnall County), Black Knights (Central Gwinnett), Blue Jackets (Savannah), Catamounts (Dalton), Comets (South Gwinnett), Gladiators (Clarke Central), Grangers (LaGrange), Red Elephants (Gainesville), Syrupmakers (Cairo), Warhawks (Henry County)
Go on. Take Ten. Throw down for your fave classic Georgia team nickname, all you old schoolers. Or dare to say “Um, so you ask if Georgia has wolverines but you don’t question if we have GRIZZLIES, dude?!!!” (Psych! We don’t.) Give us your take on lame names and suggest some new nicks for YOUR team.
* Nope, sorry.
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Adams’ final eve approaching?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
One of the biggest games in the metro area last Friday night was St. Pius vs. Tucker at Adams Stadium. But it wasn’t just fans who came to see the game at the 45-year-old stadium; there were several people there looking to make a statement.
Many of you have heard about the Sembler Co.’s proposal to buy a large portion of land in that area to build a mixed-use shopping/residential/office complex people have compared to downtown’s Atlantic Station.
Part of this project would include buying and demolishing Adams Stadium. In addition to their objections to the new traffic the complex would bring to what they say is an already congested area, the protesters at the St. Pius-Tucker game were there to bring attention to the situation in an attempt to save Adams Stadium.
It is tied with Hallford Stadium as being DeKalb County’s second-oldest stadium — Avondale Stadium is the oldest, built in 1958 — and many people in the community don’t want to see it go. It may be difficult to get in and out of the parking lot for big games, but it has become a major part of the community over the past four decades.
However, DeKalb County athletics director Ron Sebree says part of the deal would require Sembler to identify and acquire a site and pay to build a new stadium for the county. With no new stadiums built since 1968, and after seeing the benefits of the new turf and JumboTron at Hallford, Sebree said he would love the opportunity for the county to get a new stadium with current amenities.
You tell us: What do you think about DeKalb possibly trading Adams Stadium for a new one? Does the stadium’s history make it worth saving? Or do you think having a new one would be the better option?
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