A team mascot made for Thanksgiving

 NY Times:

CUERO, Texas — America is awash in avian mascots, its sidelines overpopulated with flocks of Ravens and Hawks, Falcons and Cardinals, Eagles and Blue Jays. But one burly bird has been all but excluded from mascot consideration: the mighty turkey.

Turkeys are industrious, tasty, handsome and so distinctly American that an entire holiday is planned around them. They are also capable of chasing down intruders, vandalizing cars and colonizing college campuses — all qualities that could make for a fearsome mascot.

Yet in a nation brimming with winged team names, the Fightin’ Gobblers of Cuero High School in Texas stand nearly alone.

For generations, despite chuckles and “Roast the Turkey” taunts from opposing teams, children in Cuero have grown up dreaming of becoming Gobblers. They long to wear Gobbler green, to play under the lights at Gobbler Stadium, where the seating capacity is just slightly lower than Cuero’s population, and to watch Toby the Turkey cheer them on from the sidelines. Over time, the nickname has become a tangible connection to the region’s agricultural past as well as a point of civic pride that runs far deeper than a more common mascot ever could.

I traveled this month to Cuero, the self-proclaimed Turkey Capital of the World, as Gobbler fans were celebrating another district football championship and playoff berth. I wanted to learn more about their unwavering embrace of turkeys, which are painted on the sides of downtown buildings and immortalized in a statue outside the grocery store, and to ask residents why they thought so few other schools had seen the potential in a gobbling mascot.
...

“You watch the gobblers,” she said, “when they fan out their tails, they walk with their chest out, they’re very proud birds.”

The Gobbler name came into use about a century ago, when south-central Texas was a center of turkey farming and the bird powered Cuero’s economy. In the fields nearby, farmers would raise flocks and then trot thousands of turkeys through town on their way to market. The spectacle became ingrained in Cuero, and the town’s love for the gobbler endured even as turkey production shifted northward around the middle of the 20th century and the region’s turkey farms were replaced with cattle ranches.
...

There is more.

I used to drive through Cuero on my way from San Benito, Texas to Austin when I was a student at the University of Texas.  Back then you could see the huge turkey farms as you drove through.  I always thought it was an interesting mascot.  The San Benito mascot was the Greyhound which I have not seen too many other teams embrace.