It’s summer.

The days are longer, the temperatures are warmer and high school sports are off the grid until Aug. 28.

While the summer months often include news of league realignments, that’s not the case in 2025; the next recommendation from the Oregon School Activities Association’s Classification and Districting Committee is not due until December, so let’s have some fun.

While most of my work life centers around the Class 6A Three Rivers League and the Class 5A Northwest Oregon Conference, high school sports are alive and well in every corner of the state and at every level of competition.

While I’ve covered sports from the Class 6A level down to the 3A classification, I’ve never worked with schools at the 2A or 1A levels. And as it turns out, there are almost as many schools playing sports in those two smallest classifications (138 in total) as in the four bigger classifications combined (162).

Those smaller schools are spread out to the far corners of the state, and for the purposes of today’s column, we’re going to look at some of those schools’ unique – and very cool – team mascots, nine of them from Class 1A and 2A and one from 3A.

So that means no “Eagles.” There are 21 schools in Oregon with Eagles as their mascot, from Centennial and its 997 students to Glenwood and its 17.

Also, there’ll be no “Tigers” (14 in the state, from Tigard’s 1,356 students to Monument’s 12), no “Warriors” (13 in the state, from Aloha’s 1,633 to City First Christian Academy’s 12) and no “Cougars” (13 in the state, from Canby’s 885 to Ukiah’s four).

So now, in no particular order, are my favorite one-off high school mascot names from small schools around the state.

1) The Huntington Locomotives. As a mascot, it’s big, powerful and unstoppable. What’s not to like about that name for this eastern Oregon school of 21 students?

2) The Wishram Rattlers. It’s a dangerous and evocative choice for this school of 10 in Southwest Washington.

3) The Harvest Christian Night Hawks. C’mon – it’s just a cool name for this school of 17 in Medford.

4) The Veritas Vanguard (27 students). It’s one of two Newberg-area picks today thanks to its unique nature and all-star alliteration.

5) The C.S. Lewis Watchmen. The Watchmen earn their spot with another one-off mascot, that for their school of 43 named after the famed Christian apologist and author of the “Narnia” series.

6) The Powers Cruisers. Again, just a unique, cool moniker for this school of 21 in southwest Oregon.

7) The Gaston Greyhounds (116 students). Points again for alliteration, and for any sport that includes running, you’d at least sound fast.

8) Central Linn Cobras (128 students). Like Wishram at No. 2, this one sounds dangerous, and who doesn’t want that for their sports team?

9) Toledo Boomers (119 students). There’s only one school named “Boomers” in the state, and in this case, it’s named for the loud sounds made by mountain beavers, also known as Boomers.

10) Cascade Christian Challengers (182 students). Whether you like it for its own merits or because it echoes one of Dodge’s big-name muscle cars, it’s another solid one-off entry on the list.

*Editor’s Note: The photo accompanying this story was updated using ChatGPT