The symbol most associated with the state of Wyoming is a cowboy riding a bucking horse, and the state sport is rodeo. They even call it the Cowboy State (the second nickname after the Equality State).
So it should come as little surprise that this week's featured mascot from Wyoming has to do with the cowboy lifestyle. It just doesn't necessarily sound like it would.
The athletes at
Big Piney (Wyo.) are the Punchers. They are not Kangaroos. They are not boxers. They not violent individuals.
They're pretty much cowboys, just under a different name. Cowboys can also be called cowpunchers, and Punchers is just a shortened version of that.
It makes the mind wander, though, about other hypothetical reasons why a team would be called the Punchers. Maybe the school was named after a famous boxer? Perhaps the inspiration was the kangaroo, an animal with a vicious punch. Or maybe it's just a rough group of thugs in town and punching is a common way to settle disagreements. Wyoming is the Wild West, after all.
Big Piney has fewer than 600 residents, and combined with Marbleton there are a little less than 2,000. So in western Wyoming, it's not about the number of Punchers you have, it's how much power they can pack into a punch.
Two other American schools have chosen the Punchers nickname, and both Mason (Texas) and Mifflin (Columbus, Ohio) got that name by shortening Cowpunchers.
