Best high school mascot in Wisconsin: Top 10 candidates

In the 1940s, there were still some ore docks left in Ashland — which is in northern Wisconsin on the shores of Lake Superior — so a grass-roots effort to change the school’s mascot from the Purgolders (yes, they're purple and gold) to the Oredockers stuck. And so it remains. Also interesting to note that the state still has two other high schools called the Purgolders.

As far north as Ashland is, Bayfield is another 23 miles farther north on Lake Superior. It's a community steeped in fishing tradition, and trolling is one way to fish. Bayfield honors that tradition by calling its teams the Trollers.

No, this has nothing to do with cigars. A Cuban is simply a person from Cuba City, which used to be called Yuba, but the name changed because the state already had a city called Yuba. So the high school nickname very well could have taken a more coffee-like turn as the Yubans if the city’s name didn’t change.

And this nickname has nothing to do with the northern skies of Wisconsin. DeForest is a community of Norwegian ancestry, and Norskies is a term for "Little Norwegians.”

The city of Horicon is at the entrance to the 32,000-acre Horicon Marsh and the natural area that goes with it, so the high school went with Marshmen as its mascot.

In 1924, Kaukauna coach Bill Smith was so impressed with Red Grange, he called his small but quick group of running backs “galloping ghosts,” which stuck as a name for the school’s other teams. 

Mellen has a long history as.a mining town, especially for a special type of black granite, and its physical mascot is as colorful as they come. It's a blue chipmunk named Chipper who carries a pick-ax (see above).

Only 25 miles away from the aforementioned Freeport (Illinois) Pretzels, the Monroe Cheesemakers basketball teams take on the Pretzels every year in "The Snack Bowl." Monroe is known as "The Swiss Cheese Capital of the U.S."

Less than 20 miles up the road from Monroe is New Glarus, which is also steeped in Swiss heritage. Residents of Glarus, Switzerland, immigrated to the U.S. and founded New Glarus in Wisconsin. Residents of Glarus are called Glarners, and Knights are cool. Thus, the Glarner Knights.

The history of the hodag is strongly tied to the city of Rhinelander, where it was claimed to have been discovered. The hodag — a fearsome creature resembling a large bull-horned carnivore with a row of thick curved spines down its back — has figured prominently in early Paul Bunyan stories.