High School Weird Names...

[Big_Sis]

The high school I went to (and my little sister goes to now) has Wildcats as their mascot. Cool, I always liked it. But lately people have been just saying "Cats" and there's more cheers with just "Cats" etc.

Ok, here's where it gets weird. For some reason, the football announcer and coaches and other people have started calling our stadium "the Cat House." I didn't think really anything about it til my Mom flipped out and said that is what they call places where you could find a prostitute. I'm like "Whaaaaa ....." :eek:

I mean, I haven't heard that but maybe coz I'm just 21. Is that a really old fashioned thing or do people still say that?

On the same subject: one of the coaches started calling the fenced off area next to the field where the cheerleaders perform "the Cat Box" and it started to catch on. Now that I DO have a problem with coz it sounds like a litter box! It just sounds so disrespectful.

I'm just an assistant coach for my little sister's JV squad so I don't wanna cause any problems but if this keeps up, I don't know what to think. What do y'all think? Offensive or no?


*The names used to be "Wildcat Stadium" and "the Cheer Box" before ....

 

[Cheermom1969]

Your story has all kinds of NO written on it! The cat house and the cat box? Oh hell no! I would be talking to somebody about that.

 

[Mamarazzi]

Well, according to Wikipedia (cuz Wikipedia knows ALL,) "cathouse" is a euphemism for "brothel." I'm way older than you and hadn't heard the term either. But, to be fair, it's also a website dedicated to the preservation of endangered felines, and a no-kill shelter in Lincoln, NE.
Cat Box totally = litter box, to me.
Now, if your rivals cheers include anything with the homophonous "P" word, that's fightin' words.

 

[Big_Sis]

Thanks for the feedback!

There's just one more thing, and I don't know if it's anything, but one of their uniforms just has "Cats" on it instead of Wildcats. My opinion: if they weren't using those other terms for the stadium & the cheer box I'd be ok with it but now it just seems kinda creepy. What do you think???

 

[Kaleigh]

No I totally agree with you! It's weird and kind of offensive. I would maybe talk to the head cheer coach or football coach, and if need be the principal. I don't think you're the only one who could take these um, "nicknames" badly.


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[ItsCheerGirl]

I totally agree with you. It's definitely weird and could be interpreted as offensive to some people. Maybe you could talk to the coach or football coach or announcer and ask them to start using "wildcat stadium" and "cheer box" again

 

[INeverStopCheering]

Our football stadium was called The Swamp, just throwing that out there.

But yes cat house is a euphemism for brothel, not common but still known. I don't really think thats what you want people thinking of your school as


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[Big_Sis]

Thank y'all soooo much! I thought maybe my mom was just over-reacting (or I was just being weird about the cat box thing) so hearing that its offensive from other people in the cheer community makes me feel better :)

I think I will talk to the teacher/moderator & see what she thinks. She's almost my mom's age but she's really shy & would probly never say anything. Maybe if she knows I have her back, we could say something together....

 

[AScheer]

The school I cheered for in high school occasionally referred to stuff as the cat den. We also had a t-shirt once that referenced the "cat" cave as a play on batman and the bat cave. Cat box to me just sounds dumb.

As for uniforms the CATS for us on our uniforms is $45 cheaper per uniform then Wildcats, so all of our uniforms say cats even though we are technically the wildcats! My guess is that's probably why they switched the uniform lettering, not because of the new names.

 

[SharkDad]

The trick here is how to address it. . .

Just complaining about the current terms people are used to may be met with resistance.

A more diplomatic approach may be "hey, I was looking up uses of Cat house and Cat Box and found they can stand for this and this. . ."

"How about we come up with terms that the students, faculty and alumni can all be proud of like this and this. . .maybe we can let the kids have an input or vote on the name?"

Offering the problem as a harmless observation and then having a proposed solution may help you get buy-in from the principal, faculty, and students.

 

[Big_Sis]

That's a good idea about the voting thing, specially since the school has a brand new principal this year and I'm just guessing but he probably wouldn't want to make any changes that might make people mad. If he throws it out for a vote tho (with info on why it might be offensive), then people might really like him coz they felt included in the decision process.

I think I get why they started calling it Cat House - coz the team would say "this is OUR house" bout the home stadium (like, we can't let them come into our house & beat us kinda thing). So "Cat House" might stay :confused: but "cat box" has just GOT to go...