Otus the Head Cat

Jacksonville to debut Tasmanian Devil mascot

The Tasmanian Devil will replace the Titans as Jacksonville High’s mascot. The fierce marsupial allows the school to have Devils as a mascot once again without appearing to be a satanic cult.
ALSO, please append this to the caption if there is a photo: Fayetteville-born Otus the Head Cat’s award-winning column of humorous fabrication appears every Saturday.
The Tasmanian Devil will replace the Titans as Jacksonville High’s mascot. The fierce marsupial allows the school to have Devils as a mascot once again without appearing to be a satanic cult. ALSO, please append this to the caption if there is a photo: Fayetteville-born Otus the Head Cat’s award-winning column of humorous fabrication appears every Saturday.

Dear Otus,

Did I read that Jacksonville High is planning on changing its mascot back to the Red Devils? It's about time. I was a Red Devil in '82 and will never be a Titan. That name sucks eggs.

-- Regan MacNeil,

Gravel Ridge

Dear Regan,

It was wholly a pleasure to hear from you and to commiserate with your team mascot having fallen victim to the tsunami of political correctness and evangelical zeal inundating the country in recent years.

How well we all remember the anti-Indian mascot movement that swept the country more than a decade ago. As the National Congress of American Indians reminds us, "the use of native Americans as sports mascots was born in an era when racism and bigotry were accepted by the dominant culture."

In January, the Cleveland Indians finally retired their grinning, hooked-nose cartoonish mascot, Chief Wahoo, from uniforms, but it was the 2005 call by the National Collegiate Athletic Association to re-evaluate mascot choices to show "respect for and sensitivity to the dignity of every person" that was the major impetus. It resulted in 19 college teams being cited as having "hostile or abusive names, mascots, or images."

Chief among those (and by chief, I mean primary) was the Arkansas State University Indians and its scalp-waving, bulbous-nosed Jumpin' Joe. ASU switched to the Red Wolves in 2008.

That sort of societal backlash is what has happened with your Red Devils.

Until recently, five Arkansas high schools used the Red Devil as the team mascot. In addition to Jacksonville, the high schools in Augusta, Atkins and Mountain Pine were also Red Devils. Lewisville High was the Red Devils before the school went belly up.

There is no way around the fact that these schools opted to use the popular image of Satan as their logo. Ponder that for a moment -- a costumed kid as evil incarnate and the embodiment of sin prancing along the sidelines with a pitchfork.

What in heaven's name were they thinking?

Perhaps it was a mascot the schools thought would strike fear in their opponents. If you have a decal of Lucifer on your helmet, you will surely have a team that can whup such pansies as the Cotton Plant Scrappers or the Wheatley Pirates.

The national eschewing of Red Devils will probably also eventually affect the West Memphis Blue Devils and the Hughes Blue Devils, which once boasted Auburn's Gus Malzahn as head football coach. Although the color is blue and not red, the use of horned satanic iconography has declined since Malzahn left in favor of a blue H.

However, the anti-Red Devil movement will not affect the Wonderview Daredevils in Hattieville, the Morrilton Devil Dogs or the Gurdon Go-Devils.

Daredevils is self-explanatory. Devil Dogs is the nickname (teufelshunde) German soldiers gave the U.S. Marines in World War I, and a go-devil was a one-horse sled used for hauling timber in the early 1900s.

For some reason, the most popular school mascot in Arkansas is Wildcats with 26. That includes North Little Rock, which picked Charging Wildcats when it consolidated its two high schools (Chargers and Wildcats) in 1990. The furry feline logo with a lightning bolt is far superior to the stylized, convoluted and downright ugly NLR initials mash up the school has adopted. It looks at first glance like NXR.

After Wildcats, Arkansas high school mascots in order of popularity are Bulldogs, Eagles (including Golden, War and Screamin'), Panthers, Tigers, Hornets and down the list to the now-toxic and racially divisive Rebels. We're lookin' at you, Highland High Rebels up there next to Cherokee Village.

Kudos to those maverick schools that went for originality. Most famous are the Conway Wampus Cats, the Ozark Hillbillies, the Deer Antlers, the Arkansas School for the Deaf Leopards (see what they did there?) and the Hartford High Hustlers (with a beaver mascot).

Jacksonville joins that elite group with its choice of Tasmanian Devils. The carnivorous nocturnal marsupial rivals the honey badger in fierceness and should mollify traditionalists who want to keep Devils somewhere in the name, while being completely non-offensive to any socially conscious outfit.

Until next time, Kalaka reminds you that the big Tasmanian Devil mascot unveiling will take place at halftime during homecoming Sept. 28 against the Jonesboro Golden Hurricane. Wait? Why did a team from Jonesboro pick a hurricane, let alone a golden hurricane, as its mascot?

Disclaimer

Fayetteville-born Otus the Head Cat's award-winning column of

Z humorous fabrication X

appears every Saturday. E-mail:

mstorey@arkansasonline.com


Disclaimer: Fayetteville-born Otus the Head Cat's award-winning column of 👉 humorous fabrication 👈 appears every Saturday.

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