Silent but dangerous: The Alabama School for the Deaf Silent Warriors
Every state in America has its own school for the deaf, an institution geared at educating young students with hearing disabilities in a nurturing and productive setting. As the years have moved on, each of these schools has done all it can to provide the same traditional high school experience for its students that others receive in more standard public schools.
Naturally, a major part of that experience is provided by prep sports, and each school heads into athletic competition with pride for its own mascot, whether the cheers are vocal or silent. Most hearing impaired schools use traditional popular mascots -- think the Wildcats or Wolves -- but not the Talladega (Ala.) Alabama School for the Deaf. They're the nation's one and only Silent Warriors, and they compete with a ferocity that does their nickname proud.
As noted by USA Today, more than 60 percent of students at Alabama School for the Deaf participate in some form of student athletics. That's part of the reason the school's sports programs have been so successful; the Silent Warriors have won state and national titles in each and every interscholastic sport they can compete in and have even taken the field in the International Deaf-Olympics.
That the Silent Warriors are so successful while competing against able-bodied teens at other Alabama public schools only adds to their mystique.
After all, just because the Silent Warriors get "points" for originality doesn't mean they need them to win.
Other Great Alabama Mascots of Note:
The Highland Home (Ala.) High Flying Squadron, which took its name in the 1940s after a group of football players from the school who were sent into the same airborne squadron during World War I.
The Montgomery (Ala.) Sidney Lanier High poets are named after -- you guessed it -- poet and musician Sidney Lanier. Intimidating? Maybe not. Original? You betcha.
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