Top 10 high school mascots in Illinois: Vote for the best

From Caxys to MightyMen to Pretzels, meet the best high school mascots in Illinois

Dunbar (Illinois) High School's mascot is the MightyMen/MightyWomen. / SBLive archives

Mr. T is famous for pitying the fool and being a mighty man, but before that he was a part of the Dunbar MightyMen, one of the best high school mascots in Illinois.

Over the next couple of months, SBLive/SI will be featuring the best high school mascots in every state, giving readers a chance to vote for No. 1 in all 50.

Vote: Best high school mascot in Georgia

Vote: Best high school mascot in Hawaii

Vote: Best high school mascot in Idaho

The winners and highest vote-getters will make up the field for our NCAA Tournament-style March Mascot Madness bracket in 2025. The Coalinga Horned Toads (California) are the defending national champions.

Here are High School on SI's top 10 high school mascots in Illinois (vote in the poll below to pick your favorite):

The poll will close at 11:59 p.m. ET Thursday, Oct. 3.

1. Appleknockers (Cobden HS)

This seems like a missed opportunity for Cobden to use a corn pun, but the rural town is located in a region rife with apple orchards (and peach orchards, but Peachknockers doesn't have the same ring to it).

2. Caxys (Lake Forest Academy)

We know you already know this, but “Caxy" is ancient Greek for “ribbit." In the early 1900s, Aristophanes’ comedy “The Frogs” was the subject of a popular Greek literature class at the school. Thus, the Caxys.

3. Cornjerkers (Hoopeston HS)

"The Sweetcorn Capital of the World" is Hoopeston, Illinois, and a cornjerker is (or was) a farmer who harvested corn. Technology has changed the process of harvesting corn, but the school should never change its nickname.

4. Flaming Hearts (Effingham HS)

Ada Kepley, the first American woman to graduate from law school, was a resident and proponent of tourism in Effingham. She dubbed the town as the "Heart of America,” and that led to the school’s team name change from the Warriors to the Flaming Hearts. No one is sure where the “Flaming” came from.

5. Marcos (Polo HS)

Undoubtedly one of the historically punniest mascot names in the country, right alongside Minnesota’s Roosevelt Teddies.

6. MightyMen/MightyWomen (Dunbar HS)

Dunbar MightyMen/MightyWomen logo / Courtesy of Dunbar HS

Named in honor of African American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar, the school opened in 1942 to provide skill workers for the war. It became a public high school in 1946, and among the MightyMen and MightyWomen to attend Dunbar include Mr. T and Jennifer Hudson.

7. Pretzels (Freeport and New Berlin HS)

These two Illinois schools — about 250 miles apart but both rich with German history — are the only ones in the country called the Pretzels. When they played a baseball game against each other in 2015, “Let the Salt Fly” T-shirts were on sale.

8. Shells (Roxana HS)

Originally named for the Shell Oil refinery that opened in town in 1918, Roxana is still called the Shells despite Phillips 66’s acquisition of the refinery in the early 2000s.

9. Whip-Purs (Hampshire HS)

“Whi-Pur” won the school’s mascot contest in the 1940s. The school’s colors were white and purple, so “Whi-Pur” shortened that. At some point it evolved into Whip-Pur to make it look more like a real word, and that became an important part of the original mascot drawing (a cat holding a whip).

10. Wooden Shoes (Teutopolis HS)

The Wooden Shoes got their name from a basketball coach in the 1930s. He wanted to honor the town's German heritage and the lone cobbler in town by calling the Teutopolis teams the Wooden Shoes, and it's stuck ever since. The school's logo is a large T with a wooden shoe crossing it.

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-- Mike Swanson | swanson@scorebooklive | @sblivesports

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