America's Top High School Mascot Announced
The city of Centralia, Ill., went nationwide to find support for its
Orphan mascot – and it paid off with nearly 32 million votes in the
past month.
Centralia won USA TODAY High School Sports’ Best Mascot competition on Wednesday, capping a monthlong barrage of voting rallies through a state, regional and national round.
The Orphans tallied roughly 26 million votes in the final round alone.
Finishing second was the Carbon (Price, Utah) Dinos, who totaled more than 13 million votes in the final round.
Centralia, a city of 14,000 with a high school enrollment of 1,000, held round-the-clock voting parties at which students and residents packed computer labs. A local restaurant/bar had a voting night, and offered specials to residents who brought in laptops to vote. It was the conversation after church, at all the stores and restaurants in town and, of course, at the school.
But what struck Centralia High School principal Reid Shipley the most was the support his school was receiving around the country. He said social media was jammed with notes and encouragement from coast-to-coast, as alums gathered together to make sure the Orphans took home the crown.
“Amazing,” Shipley said, “just how widespread our community has become. We’ve always said once an Orphan, always an Or-Fan. That’s most appropriate right now.”
There are varying accounts of how Centralia was given the Orphans nickname. A Chicago sportswriter wrote that "they looked like a bunch of orphans but they sure could play basketball" - during the Great Depression, Centralia High School and the community was hit hard and the team wore raggedy uniforms.
In the 1970s Centralia introduced girls athletics to the school and it was only fitting to name them the Orphan Annies.
The actual mascot, the look of it, came in the 1940s. A group of “artists” came into a basketball practice and asked the coach if he could loan out an athlete for them to sketch and create the Orphan mascot.
The coach said, sure, he had an actual orphan on the team and instructed Arnold Gluck to go with the group.
Gluck was indeed an orphan for much of his childhood before finding his grandfather – and eventually his mother – in Centralia. He went with the artists, who sketched him doing different drills, and the mascot was born.
Now 84, Gluck still lives near Centralia and participated in the past month’s voting parties.
“I never thought too much about it at an early age, but (now) I’m so proud of it,” Gluck said Wednesday. “
It could not have come at a better time, Mayor Tom Ashby said. Centralia has been saddled with rough economic times - an unemployment rate of 13 percent.
“I couldn’t be happier,” Ashby said. “The community we have, the best asset is our people. The pride we have here is something else. We are proud of our heritage. We’re looking for some bright spots. This shows even with the downturn that we can have something to look forward to and have some brightness. It’s a shot in the arm.”
Centralia won USA TODAY High School Sports’ Best Mascot competition on Wednesday, capping a monthlong barrage of voting rallies through a state, regional and national round.
The Orphans tallied roughly 26 million votes in the final round alone.
Finishing second was the Carbon (Price, Utah) Dinos, who totaled more than 13 million votes in the final round.
Centralia, a city of 14,000 with a high school enrollment of 1,000, held round-the-clock voting parties at which students and residents packed computer labs. A local restaurant/bar had a voting night, and offered specials to residents who brought in laptops to vote. It was the conversation after church, at all the stores and restaurants in town and, of course, at the school.
But what struck Centralia High School principal Reid Shipley the most was the support his school was receiving around the country. He said social media was jammed with notes and encouragement from coast-to-coast, as alums gathered together to make sure the Orphans took home the crown.
“Amazing,” Shipley said, “just how widespread our community has become. We’ve always said once an Orphan, always an Or-Fan. That’s most appropriate right now.”
There are varying accounts of how Centralia was given the Orphans nickname. A Chicago sportswriter wrote that "they looked like a bunch of orphans but they sure could play basketball" - during the Great Depression, Centralia High School and the community was hit hard and the team wore raggedy uniforms.
In the 1970s Centralia introduced girls athletics to the school and it was only fitting to name them the Orphan Annies.
The actual mascot, the look of it, came in the 1940s. A group of “artists” came into a basketball practice and asked the coach if he could loan out an athlete for them to sketch and create the Orphan mascot.
The coach said, sure, he had an actual orphan on the team and instructed Arnold Gluck to go with the group.
Gluck was indeed an orphan for much of his childhood before finding his grandfather – and eventually his mother – in Centralia. He went with the artists, who sketched him doing different drills, and the mascot was born.
Now 84, Gluck still lives near Centralia and participated in the past month’s voting parties.
“I never thought too much about it at an early age, but (now) I’m so proud of it,” Gluck said Wednesday. “
It could not have come at a better time, Mayor Tom Ashby said. Centralia has been saddled with rough economic times - an unemployment rate of 13 percent.
“I couldn’t be happier,” Ashby said. “The community we have, the best asset is our people. The pride we have here is something else. We are proud of our heritage. We’re looking for some bright spots. This shows even with the downturn that we can have something to look forward to and have some brightness. It’s a shot in the arm.”
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