Bad Axe, Big Foot, Hellgate and Show Low among "coolest" high school names in all 50 states

What does it mean to be "cool?" Definitions of the term state essentially that due to its subjective nature, "cool" has no standard definition. That's pretty cool!

So when it comes to trying to select the "coolest" high school names in every state (or the name of the town if they are the same), one person's "cool" is another person's "meh". With that in mind, MaxPreps attempts to name the coolest school name in every state with the knowledge that the teams selected are highly subjective. All the better to spark debate, discussion and disagreement.

We followed a few simple rules when determining what was "cool." First, it had to be unique, but it had to be more than that. For something to be cool, it had to be beyond the average, but not outside the parameters of what is acceptable. It had to be interesting, funny, weird, different, imaginative, but not obnoxious, rude or mean. It had to be, well, cool.

First a disclaimer or two. As the curator of this list, please understand that I realize my place in the "cool" universe. On the sliding scale of coolness, I rank much closer on the spectrum to Potsie Webber than to Arthur Fonzarelli (1970s pop culture reference. Google it). I also plan on using the word "cool" enough times in the story that it probably stretches the limit on what is acceptable. But that's cool, too. Coolest High School Names

Alabama: Paul W. Bryant (Cottondale)
There are very few high schools named after college football coaches and Paul W. Bryant is one of the most recent. Known as Paul "Bear" Bryant while leading Alabama to six national championships, college football's winningest coach at the time of his retirement passed away in 1983 and never saw his namesake school, which was built in the early 2000s. Of course in honor of Bear, Paul W. Bryant named its mascot the Bears. Except that it didn't. It couldn't. A court ruling in the 1970s said that no school in Tuscaloosa could have the same mascot as one of the previous segregated schools. Since the old Tuscaloosa High School was the Bears, Paul W. Bryant instead chose to be the Stampede.

Alaska: Eek
A small town of just 400 people on the state's southwestern coast, Eek High School has a boys and girls basketball team and the name of the town is Eskimo for "two eyes." While Eek is a mild exclamation most often associated with the spotting of a mouse, the Eek mascot is the Cougar.

Arkansas: Umpire
Unfortunately in society, the umpire is often the victim of abuse and scorn from viewing public, so it's pretty cool what happened in this Arkansas town in the early 1890s. After the grand opening of a local mill, the townspeople held a baseball game. After the game, one of the townspeople suggested that they name the town's new post office "Umpire" because the umpire that day had done such a great job. A cool display of sportsmanship.

Arizona: Show Low
To say that your town and school were named after a poker game is pretty cool. That's the case for Show Low, where a pair of ranchers played a marathon card game to determine who would get the land. After playing for a long time, it was determined that the two ranchers would draw cards and "show low" meaning low card wins. One rancher pulled up a two of clubs and reportedly exclaimed "Show Low it is." The winner of the land? Appropriately named (for this story anyway), Corydon E. Cooley.

California: Hercules
The Contra Costa County town is indirectly named after the Roman god Hercules, who was one of the cooler Roman gods known for his strength and power. The city itself was actually named for the Hercules Powder Company, which produced dynamite. The city, at one time, produced the most dynamite in the country. The school mascot is the Titans.

Colorado: Greeley West (Greeley)
Normally any school with a direction attached to it would rate low on the cool scale. But Greeley West needs some context. First, the town and school is named after Horace Greeley, who founded the New York Tribune. During the 1830s, Greeley implored young men to "Fly, scatter through the country. Go to the Great West." Greeley was very supportive in the growth of Colorado to the point where a town was named after him. There is a Greeley Central High School, but the only directional name is Greeley West, perhaps an homage to Greeley's cry to "Go West".

Connecticut: Cheshire
There are few children's storybook characters as cool as the Cheshire Cat in Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland." The Cheshire Cat has many famous cool quotes, including, "Not all who wander are lost," "Every adventure requires a first step," and "Imagination is the only weapon in the war with realty." While Cheshire High's mascot is the Rams, private school Cheshire Academy is the Cats.

Delaware: Caesar Rodney (Camden)
One of America's Founding Fathers, Rodney showed just how important it is to vote. With two of Delaware's delegates split on the vote to join the resolution of independence from England, Rodney got word of the tie and rode 70 miles in the rain to cast the deciding vote and have Delaware join the other colonies in the fight for independence. Voting is cool.

Florida: Frostproof
Sports teams often use a little deception in their strategy in order to win the game. The same is true for the settlement of Keystone City in central Florida in the mid-1800s. With people leaving the settlement, townsfolk needed a reason for people to come and live there. So they chose a little deception by naming the town "Frostproof" thus claiming that orange orchards would never fall victim to devastating frost. Good news, It worked! People came to Frostproof to grow oranges. Bad news! A few years later a freeze nearly killed all of the oranges in Frostproof.

Georgia: Banneker (College Park)
There are many schools across the country named for great African Americans including multiple Booker T. Washington, Martin Luther King and Frederick Douglass high schools. But only three are named after one of the earliest African American pioneers, Benjamin Banneker. A self taught free man, Banneker was a jack of all trades as he had jobs as an astronomer, mathematician, naturalist, farmer and surveyor, but he was most known for the almanacs he wrote in the early 1790s.

Hawaii: Nanakuli (Waianae)
Like those in Frostproof, Fla., the residents of Nanakuli were not above using a little deception, but for them it was to avoid embarrassment. Nanakuli translates to "Look at knee." According to legend, the Nanakuli area is an area where growing food is difficult. A tradition among islanders, however, is to offer food to any passersby. With no food to offer, however, the Nanakuli "looked at their knees' which also meant "to act deaf" so that they didn't understand their visitors.

Idaho: Snake River (Blackfoot)
Perhaps I am showing my age with this 1970s pop culture reference, but for me Snake River will always be related to Evel Knievel and his rocket jump over the Snake River Canyon. Jumping things on a motorcycle was cool back in the 1970s. Don't believe me, just look at Happy Days. Fonzi jumped trash cans in Arnold's parking lot. Fonzi was cool. The jump was cool. Knievel also jumped trash cans and buses and fountains and canyons. While the jump over the Snake River Canyon sort of fizzled out (his parachutes ejected too early), it was still pretty cool.

Illinois: Stagg (Palos Hills)
A college coach for nearly 70 years, Amos Alongzo Stagg had a huge influence over high school sports. He organized the first national basketball tournaments and national track meets to be held at Chicago University, where he coached football, basketball, baseball and track. The national tournaments were largely recruiting tools, however, as it allowed Stagg to scout the top talent in the country and have them come right to his campus. His tournaments lasted into the late 1920s and he coached college football until he was 96.

Indiana: Speedway
The home of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the town of Speedway was designed in 1912 to be a town where horses were not needed. Cars ruled the day. And of course cars are cool. Do a Google search for "cool cars" and you will get 5.5 billion results.

Iowa: Dunkerton
Sometimes the name of the town and school just sounds cool. If you are a basketball player, why wouldn't you want the name of your school to be "Dunkerton." Of course with a name like Dunkerton, you have to walk the walk. For the most part, Dunkerton has done just that, finishing 20-4 last year and 13-0 in league play. The name of the town comes from the last names of the brothers who founded the town. No word on whether or not they could throw down.

Kansas: Dodge City
Sometimes towns are cool on reputation. In the late 1800s, Dodge City was known as "the wickedest town in the West" and it was home to lawmen like Bat Masterson and Wyatt Earp. Perhaps capitalizing on the wicked theme, the local high school is the "Demons."

Kentucky: Hazard
Originally named "Perry Court House" after War of 1812 hero Oliver Hazard Perry, the name of the town later changed to Hazard, which is way cooler. It's not to be confused with the Hazard from the 1980s TV show "Dukes of Hazzard," which took place in Georgia. But undoubtedly the real town and fictional town are often confused. So the real Hazard didn't fight it and even invited the stars of the TV series to come visit the town during its Black Gold Festival, which they did.

Louisiana: Istrouma (Baton Rouge)
Red Stick High School in Red Stick, Louisiana, doesn't sound too cool, but Istrouma High in Baton Rouge is much cooler. Istrouma is the Choctaw translation of red stick or pole, which indicates boundary lines. Baton Rouge is the French translation. Istrouma was a football powerhouse in the 1950s.

Maine: Mount Desert Island (Mount Desert)
One of the largest islands in the nation, Mount Desert Island is cool due to the order of the geographical descriptive words in its name. Originally named by French explorer Samuel de Champlain as the "Island with barren mountains."

Maryland: Walter Johnson (Bethesda)
The school that opened in 1956 and is located in Bethesda is named after a gentleman who retired to nearby Germantown and became the county commissioner, which really isn't all that cool. The fact that Walter Johnson was also the greatest pitcher Major League Baseball had ever seen up until that point is much cooler. Johnson retired in 1927 with the most strikeouts in league history and he still holds the league record for career shutouts with 110.

Massachusetts: Seekonk
The Native American people in this region were known as "People of the Morning Light" because they were the first to greet the sun in the morning. However the name Seekonk is actually a name meaning "Black Goose."

Michigan: Bad Axe
The town derives its name from a pair of surveyors who camped at the location and found a badly worn down axe. The duo named the camp after the "Bad Axe" and that later became the name of the town.

Minnesota: Warroad
The school is known to have a great hockey tradition with multiple Olympians coming from the small town along the U.S.-Canadian border. The town is named after the location of the long war between the Ojibwe and Sioux tribes.

Mississippi: Nanih Waiya (Louisville)
The term Nanih Waiya refers to burial mounds in Southern Mississippi that signal the origin of the Choctaw Tribe.

Missouri: Kickapoo (Springfield)
The school is named after the Native American people and is translated to mean "stand here and there" or "wanderer." Kickapoo is also a song by Tenacious D, self-proclaimed as the world's most awesome band.

Montana: Hellgate (Missoula)
The area in Montana is known as Hellgate because it is a place where the Blackfoot tribe would ambush its enemies.

Nebraska: Wahoo
In slang, wahoo is an utterance to express exuberance or enthusiasm. The town itself is named after the type of brush that was found on the prairie around the town.

Nevada: Jackpot
When Idaho outlawed gaming in 1954, the owner of a local casino decided to move one mile across the border into Nevada. The owner of the casino was named Pete Piersanti, but he went by the cool nickname "Cactus Pete" because of course he did. He is credited with founding the town of Jackpot.

New Hampshire: High Mowing (Wilton)
High Mowing was a term used to describe an area high on a hill that was the optimal place for higher learning.

New Jersey: Hoboken
Sometimes a town or school is cool because of who is from there and Hoboken is home to one of the coolest singers of all-time in Frank Sinatra. The city has parks, streets and statues to commemorate the "Chairman of the Board."

New Mexico: Goddard (Roswell)
Located in Roswell, the school is named after scientist Robert Goddard, who was famous for building rockets (which also happens to be the school's mascot). One cool thing about the school is that most of the buildings are underground. That's because when it was built in 1965 at the height of the Cold War, the idea was that the school could be used as a bomb shelter.

New York: Ichabod Crane (Valatie) / Sleepy Hollow
Take your pick here since both schools are named in honor of the Washington Irving story "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." Ichabod Crane is located in Valatie and has the mascot "Riders." Sleepy Hollow is the "Horsemen."

North Carolina: First Flight (Kill Devil Hills)
While First Flight is certainly cool in its own right, considering it commemorates the first flight of a plane in the United States, the name of the town where it's located may be even cooler. Located next to Kitty Hawk, First Flight is located in the awesomely-named Kill Devil Hill.

North Dakota: Devils Lake
The settlers in the area may have mistaken the Native American name for the lake and called it "bad spirit lake" or Devil's Lake.

Ohio: Defiance
The city got its name from Fort Defiance, which was built by "Mad" Anthony Wayne in 1794. The fort itself got the name from Charles Scott, who said "I defy the English, Indians and all the devils of hell to take it."

Oklahoma: Will Rogers College (Tulsa)
Imagine if a new high school in Massapequa, the hometown of comedian Jerry Seinfeld, was named after the nation's most famous comedian? It would be a little different, but certainly pretty cool. That's what happened in Tulsa in the 1930s when a new school took the name of the recently-deceased and nationally-known humorist Will Rogers. The school is also the home of author S.E. Hinton, who wrote one of the coolest books about high school, "The Outsiders" when she was a 17-year-old student at the school.

Oregon: Philomath
Someone who is a Philomath is someone who is interested in learning math, but that's not why it makes the list. The name is mentioned in an R.E.M. song, "Can't Get There from Here." Is that cool? Consider that The Atlantic called R.E.M. the greatest American band in an article in 2011. That's not too shabby.

Pennsylvania: Hershey
As a kid growing up, could you ever dream of a cooler place to live than a town devoted to the creation of chocolate? That's a great dream even if you are in your 50s! Hershey was built by Milton Hershey in 1903. Besides making chocolate, Hershey's desire was also to create the perfect American town.

Rhode Island: Hope (Providence)
Andy Dufresne of Shawshank Redemption fame said it best when he stated, "Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies." One of the coolest lines from a movie. The school is also home to H.P. Lovecraft, a cool horror author.

South Carolina: Walhalla
While Valhalla is known by the Norse as a majestic hall where dead soldiers are honored, Walhalla is the German version. References to Walhalla can be found in the works of Hunter S. Thompson, Led Zeppelin and the movie Mad Max, three levels of cool in their own right.

South Dakota: Winner
The town received its name because back in the early 1900s, it had the best trading post in the area. The name could also apply to the school's football team, which had a 163-39 record under recently-retired coach Dan Aaker and has a 23 game win streak heading into the 2022 season.

Tennessee: David Crockett (Jonesborough)
Davy Crockett is one of American folklore's legendary cool characters. He fought in the Alamo. He wore a coonskin cap. He "kilt him a bar when he was only three!" All very cool.

Texas: Happy
Right in the middle of the Texas Badlands is the ironically named town of Happy. The town got its name due to the water source that cowboys traveling the badlands were happy to find. Coincidentally the mascot of Happy High School is the Cowboys.

Utah: Hurricane
I would have expected the over-under on the number of hurricanes to ever reach Utah would be 0.5, but the answer is slightly higher at three. Nevertheless, naming a town Hurricane in Utah would be out of the norm and thus cool. The town supposedly got its name from Mormon elder Erastus Snow, who lost the top of his buggy in a windstorm at the location. "Well that was a Hurricane," he exclaimed. "We'll name it Hurricane Hill."

Vermont: U-32 (Montpelier)
Originally called Union School District 32, the name eventually shortened to U-32. The cool factor comes into play with the original plans for the school. Opened in 1971, the school aimed at individualization, community connections and experiential learning. Pictures of the school from 1971 even show students smoking in the "lounge" with the teachers. I guess even coolness has an expiration date.

Virginia: Granby (Norfolk)
Granby had an extremely successful athletic program in the 1950s and 60s, especially in wrestling, where it lost only two matches during the 1960s under coach Bill Martin. He invented the "Granby roll," which is a cool escape technique in wrestling that is now used throughout the sport.

Washington: Orcas Island (Eastsound)
Unfortunately Orcas Islands does not refer to an island full of killer whales, which would have been very cool. The area's name is a shortened version of Horcasitas, which is the last name of a Spanish explorer who discovered and named the island. Ironically, the team mascot is the Viking.

West Virginia: Nitro
At one time, the town produced nitrocellulose for the U.S. Government war effort in World War I. One of the workers at the Nitro plant was supposedly Clark Gable, who went on to become one of the coolest actors in Hollywood.

Wisconsin: Big Foot (Walworth)
It would be easy to mistake Big Foot High School as being named after the mythical creature also known as Sasquatch, which would be pretty cool in its own right. But that's not where the school got its name. In fact it might be even cooler. The school is named after Potawatomi chief Big Foot, who reportedly had six toes on one foot.

Wyoming: Jackson Hole (Jackson)
One of the more popular tourist destinations in the country, which is pretty cool, Jackson Hole started out as a favorite spot to trap beavers by a man named Davy Jackson. The long mountain valley where the town is located is called a "hole."