Top 10 high school mascots in Minnesota: Vote for the best
After going on hiatus for the high school football playoffs, High School on SI is back to featuring the best high school mascots in every state, giving readers a chance to vote for No. 1 in all 50.
We left off at Michigan in November, and we're resuming our A-through-W run through all the states with Minnesota.
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 Minnesota (vote in the poll below to pick your favorite):
The poll will close at 11:59 p.m. ET Monday, Jan. 6.
1. Agates (Two Harbors HS)
An agate crystal forms within the cavities of other rocks in acidic to neutral environments — such as the shores of Lake Superior, where the town of Two Harbors is located.
2. Awesome Blossoms (Blooming Prairie HS)
The Awesome Blossoms are no stranger to winning athletic or mascot competitions. Blooming Prairie has been the Blossoms since the early 1900s, and they added an "Awesome" in the ‘60s.
3. Blackjacks (Dawson-Boyd HS)
Every athlete in every sport at Dawson-Boyd High School wears No. 21. Just kidding. These Blackjacks are referring to the steely-eyed black jackrabbit in the school’s logo.
4. Hubmen & Jaguars & Panthers (Jordan HS)
Pay close attention to this one. In the 1940s newspapers began calling Jordan’s boys sports teams the Hubmen, but no one really knows why. In the 1970s, the school’s first girls volleyball team formed, and they understandably didn’t want to be called Hubmen. They asked to be Jaguars, and that stuck in all girls sports. In 1990, the Scott West Panthers joined the fray as a Jordan/Belle Plaine co-op. This is the only high school we know of in the country that has three nicknames.
5. Mainstreeters (Sauk Centre HS)
Sauk Centre is the birthplace of author Sinclair Lewis, and the town inspired his fictional Gopher Prairie, the setting of Lewis' 1920 novel “Main Street.” The high school chose the mascot Mainstreeters in a nod to the novel and novelist.
6. Mercuries (McGregor HS)
The only Mercuries in the country, McGregor changed the temperature of the high school sports scene by naming its teams after the Roman god of speed.
7. Spuds (Moorhead HS)
Moorhead’s teams have been called the Spuds for over 100 years. The name started being used in the late 1910s or early 1920s, inspired by at least one Moorhead school’s site atop a former potato field. The school's mascot is a big smiling potato named Spuddy.
8. Superlarks (Grand Meadow HS)
Once called the Meadowlarks, they switched to the Superlarks in the 1970s to sound tougher, and it’s worked. As athletic director Gary Sloan told KIMT3 Sports in 2020, “It’s basically an eagle on steroids or a lark on steroids, or something like that.”
9. Teddies (Roosevelt HS)
There are a whole bunch of Roosevelt high schools in the U.S., and most are nicknamed the Rough Riders or the Roughriders. But Minneapolis has the only Roosevelt Teddies.
10. Winhawks (Winona HS)
There’s no such thing as a winhawk in the wild, but Winhawks are everywhere in the wilds of Winona, and Herky the Winhawk is the school’s spirited mascot. So what is a winhawk? Simple: A hawk that wins.
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-- Mike Swanson | swanson@scorebooklive.com | @sblivesports