Many female sports teams add Lady to the team’s mascot, just to distinguish them. Humboldt has the Lady Cubs, but Iola dropped its female nomenclature. They’re the Mustangs — formerly the Fillies — due to a November 2019 decision by the USD 257 Board of Education.
I understand the need for equality and representation, but I also understand the importance of identity.
Sometimes the addition of Lady doesn’t seem necessary or doesn’t apply.
For instance, Tarleton State University dropped the Lady Texans because the term Texan encompasses both males and females. Women’s teams with Dragon mascots often insist on being called the Lady Dragons, despite a dragon being a fictional creature with no established gender lore.
It’s a cultural issue and I propose at one point the Iola Fillies were a part of that culture.
A filly is a female racehorse. Considering the old horse racing track that surrounded the football field at Riverside Park until 1961, it’s not a stretch to link the Fillies’ name with Iola’s rich horse racing tradition. It’s culture.
Along that same line, Churchill Downs hosts Oats Day before the Kentucky Derby, which is dedicated to filly races. The Breeders Cup has filly races, as do many others.
My favorite gender-based team is the Comanche High School Indians’ female counterparts — the CHS Maidens. Comanche is a Texas town in Comanche County, named after the infamous tribe who originally ruled the area and still inhabits it to some degree today. The Indians often wear all black. They are known for their hard-hitting aggression.
If a member of the Texas Rangers survived capture by the Comanche, the last person he wanted to see was a Comanche maiden. In history, Comanche warriors conducted warfare but the maidens ran nearly every other facet of Comanche life. Their terrifying lore came from the cruel, vengeful acts they inflicted on captives and they fought with nearly the same ferocity as the men.
In athletics, the CHS Maidens also wore all black and had a hard-hitting, aggressive attitude. Schools did not go to Comanche and win; they escaped Comanche victorious.
Indian or Maiden, Mustang or Filly, it’s all about culture and culture should be embraced, so long as it’s worth embracing.
Another cultural hallmark of the South is some things should be forgotten. Maybe I’m not seeing the whole picture. I’m a gleefully ignorant, cheerful, rose-tinted glasses kind of guy. Maybe, at some point, someone or some group found Filly hurtful or Iola needed the more universally relatable Mustang for some other reason.
But to this relative newcomer — a hayseed if there ever was one — the Iola Fillies sounds so much cooler.
