MaxPreps Mascot Mondays: New Hampshire high school mascots

Just as important as a school's name and its location is its mascot. Options abound, and some teams go with the commonplace while others go with the truly unique.

In New Hampshire, there are 95 schools with mascots listed in the MaxPreps database. Listed below are the Top 15 most popular mascot names in New Hampshire, the mascot names that only one school owns and other mascot facts/stats.

MAN, NOT ANIMAL
According to Marc's Distinctive Mascot Collection, they chose the Mules mascot at Newmarket not because they love the animal, but rather to look back on the town's history. Newmarket was the home to a booming textile industry in the colonial days (those mills are on the National Register of Historic Places) and some of the boys worked after school in the mills. Regular workers called grunt workers "Mules" in the factories, and those kids certainly did the grunt work.

SIMPLE ENOUGH: CATS FROM THE HILLS
Don't look too deep for a definition of Hillcat. You won't find one anywhere. It's simply a cat from the hills, and that's the way it is at Hillsboro-Deering (Hillsboro). Sure, you could have a wildcat and you could have a bobcat, but going unique with Hillcats certainly works for Hillsboro-Deering. And don't look for a Hillcat at any other high school in America, because you won't find that. You'll find Ice Cats in New York and Swampcats in South Carolina - those of the only other two mascot names that combine geographic features with cats.

THINKING LITTLE - AND GREEN - IN MANCHESTER
They think little at Manchester Central. The Little Green take their mascot name from the Big Green of Dartmouth University, definitely New Hampshire's most famous university. The interesting part is that Dartmouth is about 75 miles away from Manchester Central, not exactly a close connection. An anecdote on Wikipedia states that Central High and Concord High both wore crimson at one point and decided that the winner of the league title would get to keep crimson and the loser would have to change. Central came up short, and then became the Little Green.



WILDCATS, BUT NOT COLLEGE-LIKE
It was previously mentioned that the most famous university in New Hampshire is Dartmouth. But don't forget the University of New Hampshire, the spot where current University of Oregon head football coach Chip Kelly spent most of his formative years as an assistant. UNH is the Wildcats, and three high schools in the state followed suit: Kimball Union Academy (Meriden), Dublin and Fall Mountain (Alstead). So which one has the biggest connection to the state's flagship university? Really, none of them. All three are on the other side of the state from Durham, the home of UNH.

MOHAWK HAIRSTYLE OPTIONAL
The athletes at Colebrook Academy don't necessarily sport the mohawk hairstyle. It's definitely not a requirement. Instead, the Mohawks mascot name comes from the area's Native American history. According to Indians.org, the Mohawk Indians lived in the northeast and southern Canada, extending to the mountains of Vermont. Since Colebrook is right on the border with Vermont and just south of Canada, it seems appropriate. The Mohawk mascot name comes up 15 times in America, including Colebrook.

TOP 15 MOST POPULAR MASCOT NAMES
# Warriors 5
# Eagles 4 (There is 1 Golden Eagles)
# Panthers 4 (There is 1 Purple Panthers)
Rams 3
Red Raiders 3 (There is 1 Raiders)
Spartans 3
# Tigers 3
Huskies 3
Bobcats 3
# Cougars 3
Lakers 2
Crusaders 2
Cardinals 2
Bears 2
Blue Devils 2
# Denotes mascot name is in America's Top 15

MASCOT NAMES USED BY ONLY 1 SCHOOL

Astros Blackbirds Blue Hawks Blue Knights Broncos Bulls Cavaliers Clippers Comanches Crimson Tide Devils Engineers Falcons

Generals Giants Golden Eagles Green Waves Grizzlies Hawks *Hillcats Hornets Indians Jaguars Knights Lancers Lions

*Little Green Lumberjacks Marauders Mohawks Mountaineers Mules Orioles Owls Pacers Patriots Pioneers Pride Purple Panthers

Pythons Raiders Royals Sabers Sachems Saints Timberwolves Titans Tomahawks Toppers Tornadoes Vikings

* Denotes that no other school in America has that mascot name

MASCOT STATS
Most popular mascot name is used by 5.3 percent of schools.
There are 66 different mascot names for 95 schools.
2 schools have mascot names that no other American school has.
New Hampshire's Top 15 features 5 of America's Top 15 mascot names.