This afternoon at 4 pm, boys and girls Junior Varsity and Varsity soccer teams take on Acton-Boxborough–the boys are at home with Varsity on Field 1, Junior varsity on the middle school fields and girls are away at A-B High. If you’re around, come on out and cheer on the ‘cats.

For game prep, I could not resist going over to check out the A-B mascot. They don’t have one, at least as far as I can discover. I admit that for a split second while scrolling, I believed the large A-B to be a pretzel. That seemed unlikely to be a good mascot, but what do I know? Apparently, A-B fired their mascot, a Colonial, last October for non-Covid-related reasons. You can read about it here--the best part is that it was student-led, which is as it should be. I could not find news of a new mascot.

So then I had to go look at other mascots because you know I am a fan of the wildcat–politically correct, cool, and gender-less. The Owl is a graduate of New Canaan High School which cheers for the Rams, which is not genderless, but it would be hard to cheer for Ewes anyway–well, wait, I kind of like it “Go Ewe!” “Let’s Go, Ewes!”…hmmm, we may have missed something.

Concord-Carlisle is known as the Patriots, but seriously how could Concord be anything else? I can’t imagine that is going to change, but the Owl has been wrong before. It’s that nice statue over by North Bridge on their high school page. But not sure if they use that mascot ever for athletics–all I’ve ever seen is that stylized “C-C”. So do they yell “go C-C”? I don’t know, I haven’t been to that game.

Bedford, to whom we lost by a sad amount earlier this week is the Buccaneers. I have two issues with this: 1. Is Bedford on an ocean that I am not aware of? Where did these Bucs come from? They’re pirates, no? and 2. VERY not gender-neutral.

Westford Academy is also changing mascots, which you may have read on a blog post earlier this week. Grey Ghosts are right out. I have no idea what’s next. How about a nice Woodchuck? Really, most of metrowest would do best with a Chipmunk mascot. They are everywhere.

Now, let’s reflect on Wellesley Raiders and Wayland Warriors. Again, these mascots have some gender issues–has anyone even thought about Title IX as it relates to mascots? No. At least the spears are gone. Actually now that I look at it, Wayland is fairly gender-neutral but very very scary.

Oh, let’s chuck Lincoln-Sudbury’s Warriors in that grouping as well, although they do not seem to use any image very much since changing out their Native American symbolism in the late 90s. They are simply L-S. Which is hard to yell. Try it, but only if you are in a home office.

Waltham, Lexington and Natick are for the birds, which I completely approve of. Lexington Eagles, Waltham Hawks and Natick Redhawks. I particularly like the Waltham Hawk which looks like it’s two seconds from nabbing a Chipmunk. Yeah, skip that mascot.

And yes, there are other Wildcats in Massachusetts. I believe the private Winsor School is wildcats, but I could be wrong and am now late for my lunch meeting so shan’t look it up. Weymouth for sure is Wildcats but shhhh…I think it’s actually a tiger. Who is going to tell them? Not me. Actually ears look like a wildcat. Hmmm, okay, pass.

Maynard is definitely a Tiger. No doubts there.

If nothing else, my favorite small town underdogs, we win on mascot. Go ‘cats! Hope to see you in the stands this afternoon, Weston.