School's symbol catches flak [Encinal High School Jets]

Sacramento Bee ^ | 5/4/03 | Herbert A. Sample

[slowry]

ALAMEDA -- Just a stone's throw from Encinal High School on this island town's western end sits the once-bustling but now-shuttered Alameda Naval Air Station. The proximity is not merely physical: The school's athletic teams are the Jets, its newspaper is the Jet Blast, and its mascot is a smiling cartoon plane. But the harmony between school and armed services is under strain now as a small group of Encinal's teachers and parents attempts to bar the return of a retired Marine Corps jet to a display on the school's front yard.

[martin gibson]

Janet Gibson, a school board member and Alameda resident since 1973, said she's long considered the jet an inappropriate emblem for Encinal. "I would think there is a better symbol for the school, ...

'The Encinal Pussys'...(like in 'cat'...what did you think I meant?)

[Macaw]

[TommyDale]

Speaking of ducks, my birthplace -- Yuba City, California nicknamed its high school mascot the Honkers. I suppose if Jesse Jackson ever finds someone there to shakedown, they may rename them the Yuba City Honkies.

[MikeD]

My dad was a Pine Forest (Fayetteville, NC) Rebel. A few years after graduation they became the Trojans. From Rebels to condoms...

MD

[archy]

They had the word "Poets" on the side of their football helmets.

One of the local high schools in the town where I went to college called themselves the "Lambkins" and adorned their football helmets with smiling baby lambs.

How humiliating.

The high school team in my old hometown of Vincennes, Indiana was known as the Alices, after the title of the old Maurice Thompson novel, Alice of old Vincennes.

While working as a newspaperman for the county's newspaper, I sometimes had to help my editor come up with colorful headlines for sports stories, not my favourite cup of tea. After a couple of my submissions after a victory by the opposing Vikings [*Vikings plunder Alices* was one of the few that can be repeated, or was used] I was no longer bothered with that task....

[SMEDLEYBUTLER]

Carlos Zialcita is a male.

[Freedom4US]

It's pretty simple, these people don't want *any* reminders of the type of men and equipment required to keep a country free and rid the world of evil types. Since they have neither the balls nor the competence to serve our nation in any useful capacity, that kind of thing has to go.

[general_re]

Well, I think if we're honest for a moment, the Sharks were much cooler than the Jets...

Okay, maybe not...