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Football is back despite COVID-19 but some things are a little too crazy, even for the gridiron.
Corpus Christi in particular highlighted one team that managed to up the scale in terms of WTFness for 2020: a team nicknamed the “Cotton Pickers.”
“The Robstown Cotton Pickers come out before their season opener against London tonight,” Chris Thomasson of ABC’s KIII affiliate wrote on Twitter.
The cotton pickers are the mascot for Robstown High School and despite America’s past in regards to slavery and the antebellum south, social media went off on the nickname, questioning why exactly a high school would still have cotton pickers of all things as a nickname in 2020.
Neighboring schools have discontinued using the “rebel” and other confederate/racist mascots, but Robstown has yet to embrace such progression. In a follow-up story, it was revealed that Corpus Christi had finally accepted Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a holiday and the school board voted to no longer use “Dixie” as a fight song due to its racist origins.
The school released a statement in 2017 saying, “Robstown ISD administration has not received commentary from parents due to neighboring school districts’ mascot controversy. To be a Robstown Cotton Picker exhibits a sense of pride. At this time Robstown ISD will stay focused on student needs as their priority.”
Corpus Christi High School Facing Backlash For ‘Cotton Pickers’ Nickname was originally published on theboxhouston.com
