The Ugly Eagles of Clayton Valley Charter High take the field with one of the most unique flags we've ever seen.
File photo by Mark Bahrenfuss
might be the only school in America where you can call the athletic teams ugly and not offend anybody.
The volleyball team has embraced the ugly name.
File photo by Dennis Lee
It's a school in the eastern part of the San Francisco Bay Area that has gone through some identity changes recently, and maybe CVCHS just isn't sure if it looks good or not.
They go by the Ugly Eagles at Clayton Valley Charter, which was known as Clayton Valley High until 2012. While it doesn't appear to be an official mascot name based on evidence on the school's website, all references to the school on MaxPreps.com - maintained by staff at the school - state that Ugly Eagles is the name they prefer. And local media uses the ugly name often as well.
There isn't too much evidence online that states where the addition of ugly came from, so all we can do is check out a Wikipedia entry that tells this tale (sic): "The Class of 1972 - Started the Ugly Eagles as a means of setting those on the football team apart from the rest of the school. This whole concept was started by our Freshman/JV football coaches Glen Schrimger & Bill Nelson who challeneged us all to keep our hair neatly trimmed above the eyes, above the ears and above our collars. Keep in mind this was @ 1969 - 1970 in the middle of the "Summer of Love" and the hippie movement. To be different back then wasn't out of the ordinary but the lengths (or lack of) we took it certain bucked the trend of the times."
Perusing the school's website, you won't find the word "ugly" anywhere, and we have photo galleries of sports teams that just have Eagles on their uniforms. So while ugly appears to be something that is embraced, it hasn't been applied to everything quite yet.
From everything we can see in the pro photo galleries of the school's teams, there's nothing overtly ugly about their looks. We would say "Don't be so hard on yourselves" to the Ugly Eagles but we have a pretty solid reason to believe that they embrace ugly at CVCHS.
