YHS Crim mascot in contest to become #1 in USA

Once an insult for athletes attending Yuma High School, the term “Criminal” is now a proud moniker for the students and teachers who have “done time” at the campus, and has even been adopted as the school mascot.

While the YHS mascot is certainly one of a kind, there are many other unique and even bizarre mascots across the United States including the “Poca Dots,” “Hillbillies,” “Poets,” “Cornjerkers” and “Unicorns.” But which one is the best?

The results of an online voting contest organized by the USA Today High School Sports staff will answer that question when the competition concludes at noon (MST) March 25.

The staff has chosen the Criminal mascot to compete in the first round against four other Arizona high school mascots including the Gila Bend “Gila Monsters,” the Heritage Academy “Heroes” (in Mesa), the Page “Sand Devils,” and the Valley Vista “Monsoon” (in Surprise).

As of Thursday evening, the YHS mascot was well in the lead over the other schools with about 93 percent, or 4,886 votes cast. The website was down for maintenance Friday afternoon due to a high volume of traffic. The staff promised it would be up and running again soon.

Click here to cast a vote.  People can vote as many times as they want, but must enter a “CAPTCHA” code each time. The Arizona portion of the contest concludes March 5.

YHS Principal Faith Klostreich is “very pleased” the Criminal mascot has been chosen to participate in the national contest and has seen “growing interest in the competition,” she said.

“On Facebook, I see a lot of people are spending their free time and their personal email accounts to forward it. We are just really pleased that we can be an original and hope the community can really get behind that and vote for us.”

Klostreich believes her school will do well in the contest.

“We are the best,” she said, noting some of the other mascots in the competition are “just weird.”

She encourages Yuma-area residents to go online and vote for the Criminal mascot as often as possible.

“I think we have a lot of supporters here locally who will get in there and vote,” she said.

The winning school in Arizona, along with one each from every other state in the union and the District of Columbia, will advance to regional voting in six separate regions, with about eight schools competing in each. The regional contest begins March 6 and ends March 14.

One winner from each region will then advance to the national contest, held March 15 to 25. The winner will be declared the best high school sports mascot in the USA, and their athletic department will be given $2,000. Second place will be awarded $1,000, third $500, fourth $250 and fifth $100.