Other Illinois schools have unusual or controversial team mascots

Freeburg isn’t the only Illinois town with an unusual — or controversial — high school mascot.

Here are a few others:

Centralia Orphans/Annies: Legendary, but frugal, head coach Arthur Trout made his players pick their uniforms from a stack of leftovers from previous years. A Chicago sports writer suggested the mismatched, ill-fitting outfits made the players look “as sad as a band of unwanted orphans.” The name stuck, and the girls teams adopted Annies after the popular comic strip orphan.

Cobden Appleknockers: The small Union County school, just south of Carbondale, had no nickname when it started its athletic program. Appleknockers was coined by players at other schools as a insult to the community’s primary industry — apple picking. Some have claimed that the inspiration for the movie “Hoosiers” came from the “Amazin’ Appleknocker” of 1964, who advanced to the state championship despite having just 147 students in its entire district and competing in what was then a one-division playoff system. The Appleknockers lost the title game, 50-45, to the Pekin Chinks.

Effingham Flaming Hearts: Ada Kepley, a town resident and first American woman to graduate law school, referred to Effingham as the “Heart of America” as part of a campaign to attract visitors. The name stuck and was adopted by the high school athletic teams, who originally were known as the Warriors. How “Flaming” came to be included in the nickname isn’t known.

Hoopeston Cornjerkers: Hoopeston has long been called the “Sweetcorn Capital of the World,” and at the turn of the century, “cornjerker” was used commonly in reference to the laborers who worked the corn fields. A Danville sports writer is credited for first using that nickname for the team. By 1930, an ear of corn was included on team uniforms. In 1963, “Jerky” the mascot — a student dressed as an ear of corn — first appeared.

New Berlin Pretzels: German immigrants settled the Freeport in the 1850s and established a pretzel company there. The Stephenson County town became known as “Pretzel City” as a result, a nickname that carried over to its high school’s athletic teams.

Pekin Chinks: Though several community members played prominent roles in the civil rights movement, Pekin was known for its anti-immigrant activism and for being a “sundown town.” The Ku Klux Klan even owned the local newspaper for a time. Such sentiments may explain how the high school came to adopt the most egregious of Asian pejoratives as a mascot. For more than 50 years, a male and female student from the school would appear at games dressed according to a Chinese stereotype and sound a gong whenever the team scored. In 1980, under the pressure of national attention, the school board officially changed the team nickname to the Dragons.

Teutopolis Wooden Shoes/Lady Shoes: A local shoemaker carved wooden shoes for the local residents who were mostly German Catholics whose families arrived in the region in the early 19th century. When J.J. Griffin arrived in town as the school’s first basketball coach, he was presented a pair, which he used as a trophy for his team’s homecoming game with Neoga. It’s a tradition, and a nickname, that has stuck.

This story was originally published July 8, 2015 at 12:36 PM with the headline "Other Illinois schools have unusual or controversial team mascots."