Many school mascots are meant to be fearsome things, creatures designed to intimidate the opponent while playing up a team’s strength: Hawks, Cougars, etc. Some mascots are just descriptors of the team: Hoosiers, Huskers, etc. But some mascots miss both those categories and land in the lonely territory populated by weird animals and emblems that are impossible to take seriously. (My junior high mascot was a yearling bull; try getting excited about baby cows.) It’s to those weird, out-of-place mascots that this list is dedicated. If one of these mascots is yours, don’t worry. You’re not alone any more.

  1. The Fighting Okra: The official mascot of Mississippi’s Delta State University is the Statesman, but the unofficial one is the student-created Fighting Okra. Student athletes came up with the idea of having something absurd but also (slightly) more intimidating than a statesman, so they invented the Fighting Okra. DSU students can now show their fighting spirit, however ironic, through shirts and magnets advertising the little green guy.
  2. The Fighting Pickles: There must be some kind of allure in the South to making small green foods your mascot and adding “Fighting” to their name just for fun. The University of North Carolina School of the Arts doesn’t have any officially sanctioned athletic teams, but that hasn’t stopped them from coming up with a mascot to call their own. UNCSA students are the proud creators of the Fighting Pickle, born in the early 1970s when the school held a contest to name the football team. Earlier this year, the school had a contest allowing students to create a new logo for the Pickles. I have to hand it to UNCSA: They know how to have fun with this whole thing.
  3. Sammy the Slug: At the University of California, Santa Cruz, the students rally behind Sammy the Slug, a bright yellow banana slug. A banana slug, as you may have guessed, is just what it sounds like: a bright yellow slug, with a type local to California, that can grow up to 10 inches long. They hang out in the woods and are generally pretty gross, and the creature became the students’ mascot years ago when they wanted something that would demonstrate that athletics, while fun, aren’t worth getting too worried about. When UCSC joined the NCAA in 1980, some students and the chancellor wanted to go with a sea lion as the new mascot, but the rest of the student body rebelled, leading to a five-year battle over which mascot to use. Humor eventually won the day, and the Banana Slugs became the school’s official mascot. Right on.

  4. Super Frog: Texas Christian University students are known as Horned Frogs, and their mascot is Super Frog. On one hand, it makes a certain amount of sense: the horned frog is the state reptile of Texas, and Texans are known to take seriously whatever their state deems as the official choice in a given category, including flowers (bluebonnet) and trees (pecan). On the other, it’s not like a frog can actually do anything scary or vicious, even if it’s of the horned variety. Its main abilities are jumping, croaking, and trying not to get stepped on.

  5. Artie the Artichoke: Back to veggies: Artie the Artichoke is the mascot of Scottsdale Community College in Arizona. He started life looking like, well, an artichoke with legs, but recent makeovers have made him more athletic and inexplicably muscled. The mascot was born in the 1970s as part of a student rebellion against an administration that some thought was spending too much money on athletics. To fight back, students held an election and selected Artie the Artichoke as the mascot, winning a battle for absurd humor.
  6. The Boll Weevils: Do you know what a boll weevil is? It’s a beetle that feeds on cotton plants. They’ve proven such a problem that the federal government sponsored the Boll Weevil Eradication Program to get rid of the little pests. And it’s this little bugger that serves as the mascot for the University of Arkansas at Monticello. The school’s site says that the mascot was chosen in the early 20th century, when the pest was admired for its toughness and the terror it could strike in the hearts of farmers. And that’s well and good. But 100 years later, it might be time for a new mascot.
  7. Gorlok: Webster University named its mascot by combining the names of two streets (Gore and Lockwood) that intersect on campus. That makes sense. It’s the actual mascot that’s hard to understand. The “mythical creature” was designed by students and faculty and features the paws of a cheetah, the horns of a buffalo, and the face of a Saint Bernard. It’s body is presumably some kind of generic animal torso; maybe a lion? Now, the various parts are likely meant to indicate Webster’s desire to succeed in a variety of areas, including speed, power, and, uh, loyalty. But a Frankenstein creature with a made-up name just isn’t going to cut it next to real-life animals like tigers, you know? Gorlok lacks the sense of fun of a fighting vegetable, and is just plain weird.

  8. Gladys the Fighting Squirrel: Per the history provided by Mary Baldwin College, the squirrel was part of Mary Baldwin’s family crest, and since she co-founded the school (originally called the Augusta Female Seminary), officials decided to honor her by not just renaming the school after her but also paying tribute to the crest. That’s all well and good. Squirrels are skittish but fierce little animals. But: Gladys? There’s nothing rousing, inspirational, or fearsome about a giant squirrel named Gladys. Close but no cigar, MBC.
  9. Speedy the Geoduck: I thought this one was a made-up animal until I looked it up, and now I wish it wasn’t real. Despite the spelling, geoduck is pronounced like “gooey duck” and is a species of large saltwater clam. The clams are native to the Pacific Northwest, so it makes sense Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, would latch onto something local when looking for a mascot. Still: this is just creepy. The costumed version looks like a pickle in a tortilla, too, or at least that’s the cleanest interpretation of what it might be.

  10. Scrotie: The Rhode Island School of Design focuses on art, not athletics, so it’s no surprise that their teams don’t exactly take things seriously. The basketball team is referred to as “The Balls,” and the hockey team is known as “The Nads.” As a result, an unofficial mascot popped up a few years ago: Scrotie, which is exactly what you think it is. It doesn’t look like Scrotie is around any more, but at least the students are having a good time.

  11. The Billikens: This is probably the weirdest of the bunch. The Billiken of Saint Louis University is a surreal and (let’s face it) mostly terrifying mascot that looks like a giant white bat with feet. Even the school’s official history is fuzzy on what the thing actually is, relying instead on myths about how the creature is intended to bring good luck to the owner. Unfortunately, the Billiken is at best goofy and at worst unsettling, making it more a distracting sideshow than a real or enjoyable mascot. Maybe there’s an unclaimed brand of slug the school can use?

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