Students that are proud to be Criminals

[kjeff50cal]

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/3923845.html

June 2, 2006, 10:16PM

Criminal mascot steals the hearts of students
Yuma High in Arizona wears moniker with pride
By MICHAEL MARTINEZ
Chicago Tribune
YUMA, ARIZ. - Meet Selomith Lopez. At age 15, she's a diehard Criminal.

Everyone around her is.
"Even though we're Criminals, we're not bad. We're still good students," Lopez said.
Welcome to Yuma High School. The mascot of this city's flagship school is the Criminal. Its logo is a caricature of an ex-con: a crew-cut felon with the squint of an angry thug.
Its origin is steeped in the Wild West. From 1910 to 1913, Yuma High was housed in the abandoned Yuma Territorial Prison, now a tourist attraction. Classes were held in the cellblock area, assemblies in the prison hospital.
In 1913, the Yuma High football team played a high school in Phoenix. Yuma won.
Their opponents, the Coyotes, were sore losers. They called Yuma's players a bunch of "criminals." Even a Phoenix newspaper, according to lore, ran this headline: "The Yuma High Criminals Stole a Game."
The insult stuck, and like a cocky gunslinger, the school adopted the label as its official nickname in 1917.
Just about everything in the school celebrates the dark humor of the joint.
•There's a ball-and-chain sculpture in the middle of the campus.
•A prison-break siren sounds whenever the team scores a touchdown.
•There are replica prison gates that the team storms through upon entering the field. Of course, the Criminals are led by police cars, lights flashing.
All of this can create misunderstandings. Three years ago, residents of Gila Bend thought the visiting Yuma High wrestlers were escaped cons because their warm-up suits are real prison-issue garb, with black and white stripes. Someone called the police on them.
Every graduation conjures up the annual town joke. Last month, the class of 2006 didn't graduate, it got paroled.
Even the law doesn't mind the Criminal culture.
"I think it's great," Yuma County Sheriff Ralph Ogden said. "Four of five people on the governor's staff are from Yuma and are Criminals."
"You have to be careful how you say that," the sheriff added.


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[Clipper]

...Outstanding...

 

[4v50 Gary]

Easily a better school than the one I attended. In my days, I couldn't wait to get out and getting out was GOOD.

 

[p35]

It used to be that the high school mascot in Orofino, Idaho (home of the state mental hospital) was the "Maniac". May have disappeared in these PC times.

We had a high school in my home town whose mascot was the "Blue Devils". Every 2-3 years some fundie preacher would start a campaign to make them change it. Never did.