Collegiate and high school nicknames bring a sense of romance and chivalry to the gridiron and gymnasium floor as competing teams in vibrant school colors do battle. Adorable mascots, wearing exaggerated costumes representing some anthropomorphic version of the team’s nickname, bring cheering onlooking fans to their feet in support of the schools’ champions.
The most widely known school nicknames — Boilermakers and Hoosiers — belong to the traditional rivals of the black and old gold clad teams of Purdue University and the cream and crimson clad teams of Indiana University. Locally, Butler University has carried the Bulldogs moniker since 1919 and its live mascot namesake proudly wears the blue and white. Less well-known are the nicknames and mascots of area high schools. However, as one might expect, the most venerable nickname and mascot belongs to Indianapolis Shortridge High School, the city’s first secondary school.
An early Shortridge High School mascot was “a chubby, ruddy-faced little youngster, dressed in gaiters, tocsin and sweater” bearing a large “S.” In 1905, a Shortridge student was the mascot for the football team and sat with the team for the picture destined for the yearbook. But fate thwarted this mascot’s perpetual memorialization when he was expelled from school and the principal ordered a new team photo. The following year, an animal was picked for the school mascot, but the white billy goat, wearing an “S” and adorned in the school colors of blue and white “proved a poor mascot.” A permanent Shortridge mascot would come along nearly two decades later.
Shortridge High School met its arch rival Emmerich Manual Training High School on the basketball floor in February 1925 for the City Title. At the half, the Manual mascot darted “across the floor . . . a bright red mass of canine fur” and “pitched camp . . . in the large circle in the middle of the gym.” The Blue and White fans would not allow this affront to go unchallenged, and “from the stands emerged a cat, cradled in the arms of a Shortridge girl. It was placed alongside the Manual dog . . . the dog sniffed at the object beside him, found it a dull companion, and sauntered off the floor.” Like the Shortridge Cat, the Blue and White controlled the court and left the gymnasium with the City Title.
Inspired by the event, math teacher E. Carl Watson wrote the poem “The Gingham Dog and the Calico Cat” and the student body promptly made the Shortridge Cat the school’s mascot. The art department created a likeness of the mascot, and the Latin scholars gave it the name “Felix,” as “he had already proved lucky.” Shortridge now had a mascot, but no nickname.
“What is the Name?” asked the editorial staff of the Shortridge Daily Echo in a late November 1928 issue of the paper; “The name for our athletic teams.” Senior David V. Burns responded with “Blue Devils” and was awarded a season ticket to all athletic events for his winning proposed name. The name came from his recollection, as a young boy in 1918, listening to visiting French soldiers recounting heroic tales of their regiment, the Alpine Chasseurs known as “Blue Devils,” whose “ferocity and courage made them feared as foes.”
By the time in the late 1920s that Shortridge became known as the “Blue Devils,” two new city highs schools had selected school colors and adopted a nickname. George Washington High School teams, clad in purple and white, met their foes as the Continentals and Crispus Attucks High School athletes took to the field and court as the Tigers wearing green and yellow. In 1929, the staff of the Riparian, Broad Ripple High School’s yearbook, sponsored a naming contest for a school nickname and junior Mary Elizabeth Sawyer won with “Rockets.” A cartoon characterization of a rocket in the school colors of orange and black became the mascot “Rippy.”
For 110 years the green and white colors of Arsenal Technical High School, the third Indianapolis city high school, have taken to the gridiron and hardwood. For decades, the athletic teams from the grounds of the old federal arsenal carried the moniker “Greenclads” until 1961 when the student body officially voted to change the nickname to “Titans.” Before a game with Scecina, the new label was introduced to fans on the Tech field when a sparkle of glimmering fireworks instantaneously pierced the darkness spelling out “T-i-t-a-n-s.”
As the Indianapolis school population grew, new high schools were built. Thomas Carr Howe High School opened in 1938 to serve the Irvington area and the student council picked brown and gold for the school colors and “Hornets” for the nickname. When the new Emmerich Manual Training High School building opened in 1953, the former school building became Harry E. Wood High School. Known as the “Woodchucks,” the athletic teams wore purple and gold in their contests with other schools.
The 1960s saw the last expansion of Indianapolis public high schools with Arlington High School opening in 1961. While the black and gold school colors wore well with the nickname “Golden Knights,” many thought the title “rather stiff” and would have preferred “Arlington Archers.” Two years later under the colors of green and silver, Northwest High School became known as Space Pioneers reflecting America’s reach for the Cosmos. The eleventh and last IPS secondary school, John Marshall High School, opened in the fall of 1967 bearing the moniker “Patriots.” On the athletic field, the “Fighting Patriots” met their foes in red, white, and blue.
Not all high school nicknames and mascots are without controversy, especially those with Native American monikers and images. Locally, Emmerich Manual Training High School, with its red and white colors, was known as the “Redskins” for over ninety years, and at athletic contests a student mascot dressed as an “Indian princess” clad in buckskin unabashedly performed with the cheerleaders. In recent times, the use of the nickname divided the alumni, but the issue was resolved in 2021 when the sports teams of Christel House and Manual (which are in the same building) merged under the new name Christel House at Manual High School. The blue and gold Christel House colors and the red and white of Manual have been incorporated in the new Eagle mascot and logo.
For decades these mascots of the eleven historic IPS high schools competed on the sidelines while their teams competed on the fields and courts.
