Berks Catholic _______ ??

Although it had been clear for quite some time that Berks County could not sufficiently support two Catholic high schools, I was saddened yesterday to hear that my alma mater, Holy Name High School, would no longer exist in its current form after merging with archrival Central Catholic.  The "new" school, which will be at the current Holy Name site, will be called Berks Catholic.  Even though some of my fellow alumni aren't thrilled with the new name, I'm fairly ambivalent.  Generally there are two routes when it comes to naming Catholic high schools: 1) [Geographic Location] Catholic or 2) [Former Bishop/Pope] High.  To me, there wasn't a slam dunk name that was the obvious correct choice, although I suppose Reading Catholic would be equally fine.  I'm as sad as anybody that the school will no longer be "Holy Name," but keeping the name would be patently insensitive to the Central Catholic community that we're trying to welcome.  And once the boys' basketball or football teams, which in all likelihood are going to be among the bigger AA schools, make deep runs in the county and/or state tournaments, nobody is going to care about two different communities playing together at the same school.  I'm not saying that the current situation is equal to (or anywhere as important) as integration by any means, but if we learned anything from the Titans, it's that athletic success solves a lot of problems with creating a new community.

However, what really matters to me about the transition is this -- the nickname and mascot.  Having a cool school nickname makes all the difference in how you perceive a school.  I love going to George Mason and their basketball team is killing it right now, but their color scheme, logo, and nickname is just awful.  I'm borderline embarrassed to own any GMU gear.

C'mon, man.

In the spirit of improving the new school, I'm opening up the comments section to suggestions for mascots for the new Berks Catholic.  A point of clarification before is needed, as the following nicknames are currently in use by other local schools: Mountaineers (Antietam H.S.), Bears (Boyertown H.S.),  Bullets (Brandywine Heights H.S.), Scouts (Conrad Weiser H.S.), Blazers (Daniel Boone H.S.),  Eagles (Exeter H.S.), Tigers (Fleetwood H.S.), Mustangs (Governor Mifflin H.S.), Hawks (Hamburg H.S.), Cougars (Kutztown H.S.), Muhls (Muhlenberg H.S.), Lynx (Oley Valley H.S.), Red Knights (Reading H.S.), Panthers (Schuylkill Valley H.S.), Trojans (Tulpehocken H.S.), Raiders (Twin Valley H.S.), Bulldogs (Wilson H.S.), Spartans (Wyomissing H.S.).

Here are some suggestions I've thought of--some borderline serious, others not so serious.

The Birds of War

With Holy Name as the Blue Jays and Central Catholic as the Cardinals, the Birds of War makes all the sense in the world.  It continues the avian theme while allowing for an awesome fight song.  Take flight with the Birds of War, indeed.

The Boxcar Boys
With Reading's proud railroad past, this isn't a bad start.  Its obvious shortcoming is that Berks Catholic will be a coed school, which means we may have to accept an alternative -- the Boxcar Children.  If nothing else, our students will have excellent mystery-solving skills, a lost art among today's youth.  Something along the lines of Railsplitters could work here, too.

The Inquisition
A very cool yet underused device is a nickname that doesn't have a physical mascot counterpart (think of Alabama's Crimson Tide).  The Inquisition is a distinctly Catholic phenomenon, albeit not our proudest moment by any stretch of the imagination.  However, having a mascot with a resplendent mustache and pointy goatee would make for the best use of mascot facial hair since the old Tampa Bay Buccaneers logo:

Pretzels
Reading is known for its many brands of pretzels, all of them salty, delicious, and terrible for you.  And plus, what self-respecting Simpsons fan wouldn't want to incorporate the legendary phrase "And here come the pretzels!"



So there's my suggestions.  What are yours?

--J.J. Gittes