Leuzinger High earned permission to use the Olympics logo way back in 1932.
File photo by Dirk Dewachter
The whole world is coming down from the Sochi Winter Olympics, and if you spent some time on the MaxPreps homepage, you definitely saw that we went all-in on stories related to high school sports.
We missed one thing, simply because there were so many great individual stories to tell. We missed out on the only high school in America authorized to use the Olympics logo.
Russell Westbrook, Leuzinger
File photo by Dirk Dewachter
is not the only high school to use the Olympians mascot. But it is definitely the premier institution among the 11 that do.
The story goes that the 1932 Olympics (hosted in Los Angeles) coincided with the first graduating class at Leuzinger High, and the school made a bit of a deal. In exchange for volunteering the campus for staging in the Olympic Games, the school was allowed to use the Olympics logo and call itself the Olympians.
Information is tough to find in other sources, but you will see on Wikipedia that the school hosted a shooting range, bowling alley and Olympic-sized swimming pool. Time has taken those venues away, though, so all that's left is to remember is the mascot name and logo.
Leuzinger also can claim another piece of notoriety that a lot of people will know. The school on the western side of Los Angeles near the LAX airport is the alma mater of Oklahoma City Thunder star Russell Westbrook.
