MaxPreps Mascot Mondays: Wyoming 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 Wyoming, there are 69 schools with mascots listed in the MaxPreps database. Listed below are the Top 12 most popular mascot names in Wyoming, the mascot names that only one school owns and other mascot facts/stats.

THESE PUNCHERS DON'T PUNCH
They don't even have a boxing team at Big Piney, and we hope they play by the rules and don't live up to the mascot name during contests, running around throwing punches. The athletes from Big Piney are the Punchers, but it doesn't have anything to do with their fists. Punchers is short for cowpunchers, and cowpuncher is just another name for cowboy. They certainly eschewed the obvious cowboy nickname and went with something much more unique. And they came up with a perfect logo. Only two other American schools use the Punchers nickname, and we can't guarantee they wanted to go with the cowboy theme or the boxing theme.

THE ONLY NATION IN THE NATION
Some schools like putting the word "Nation" after the school name or mascot name, in an effort to show fan loyalty and a group mentality. At Arapahoe Charter, they really mean it. The Arapaho Nation mascot name fits because the school is located on the Wind River Indian Reservation, and most of its students are from the Arapaho Nation. The school offers courses in language, history and culture associated with the Arapaho Nation. The school is the only one in the country to have "Nation" as the second word in its mascot name.

DOGIES = COWS, NOT DOGS
The Dogies of Newcastle are not the Doggies. That missing "G" makes a big difference. A dogie is a motherless calf in a range herd, and the word is perhaps made most famous by the theme song to the "Rawhide" television show that aired between 1959 and 1966. "Keep movin', movin', movin'. Though they're disapprovin'. Keep those dogies movin', Rawhide!" The Dogies of Wyoming do share their mascot name with a school in Montana, so while it's not completely unique to Newcastle, it's unique to the interior Mountain West.

ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BARS
Outlaws is not a unique mascot name. Having a team of Outlaws in a prison town is a little bit more so. The athletes at Rawlins are the Outlaws because the Wyoming State Penitentiary is located in Rawlins. This is a similar situation to the Yuma (Ariz.) Criminals. They don't have a prisoner as a logo, though, instead it's a bucking bronco. It's interesting that only two schools in America decided to be Guards and one went with Wardens, while other schools chose to go with naming their mascots after the people behind bars. You can find seven other Outlaws in America but no others in Wyoming.

POPULAR RULE GIVES US PRONGHORNS
Wyoming is the least-populated state in the nation, according to the 2010 census, with 568,158 people spread out across 97,820 square miles (10th-largest in the nation). And according to Wikipedia, pronghorns outnumbered people in Wyoming until recently, and it didn't have to do with an increase in people. So maybe that's why Farson-Eden (Farson) went with Pronghorns: It wanted to go with the numbers. A pronghorn is often confused with the antelope though they are different animals. The pronghorn is also the fastest land animal in the Western Hemisphere, and no other school in the nation chose that name.

TOP 12 MOST POPULAR MASCOT NAMES
# Eagles 5
# Panthers 5
Broncs 4
# Tigers 4
Buffaloes 3
# Bulldogs 3
Wolves 3
Wranglers 2
Devils 2
Bobcats 2
Rams 2
Longhorns 2
# Denotes mascot name is in America's Top 15

MASCOT NAMES USED BY ONLY 1 SCHOOL

*Arapaho Nation Bearcats Bison Braves Buckaroos Camels Cougars Cyclones

Doggers Dogies Grizzlies Herders Hornets Huskies Indians Miners

Mustangs Oilers Outlaws Pioneers Plainsmen *Pronghorns Punchers Rangers

Rattlers Rebels Thunderbirds Trailblazers Trojans Warriors Wolverines

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

MASCOT STATS
Most popular mascot name is used by 7.2 percent of schools.
There are 44 different mascot names for 69 schools.
2 schools have mascot names that no other American school has.
Wyoming's Top 12 features 4 of America's Top 15 mascot names.