Does This Illinois High School Have the Funniest Team Name?

High school sports team names, mascots, and logos are entities onto themselves. Some are carbon-copies of NFL teams. Some repurpose existing logos with alternate colors. Some identities are generic (there are too many teams named the "Warriors"). Some are locally specific.

Then there are the quirky ones that prompt a snicker and a laugh. On total accident, I think I found the funniest high school sports team name in the state of Illinois. Not only is it humorous, but it's emphatically embraced by the city in which it belongs, with a rich history connected to a bygone era of farming.

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In Hoopeston, IL, a tiny, 5,000-person city in Vermilion County, not far from the Indiana border, is the Hoopeston Area School District, with a team name you won't soon forget.

Meet the Cornjerkers:

The Hoopeston Area Cornjerkers have been representing the small little enclave for generations. Get your jokes out of the way. Don't let whatever visual might be percolating in your mind for too long. The history behind the name is truly something else, and in itself an ode to the city's roots as a farming community.

What is a Cornjerker?:

Long before modern machinery simplified and expedited the processes employed by farms big and small, a cornjerker was responsible for picking or pulling the leaves off of corn once it was ready to pick. Once shucked, the corn cobs were placed into a wagon pulled by mules. Those responsible for this were known as "cornjerkers." Once corn-picking machines were invented, this process became obsolete.

How Does it Relate to Hoopeston, IL?:

Hoopeston, IL is known as the "Sweetcorn Capital of the World." The athletic teams of the Hoopeston Area School District were given the name by Bob Poisall, a sports writer for the Commercial-News in Danville, IL.

Per the school website's "History" page, team buses with student athletes were often late to games because the kids were still in the fields jerking corn. This was back in the 1920s. Poisall, frustrated by the team's perpetual tardiness to games, referred to the athletes as "a bunch of cornjerkers." The name stuck.

Way to take an insult, or a pejorative, as a badge of honor. Another very fun nugget is on March 16, 1985, the Cornjerkers varsity basketball team ranked #3 in the state of Illinois in Class A basketball. Following the team's runaway success that season, then-Hoopeston Mayor Don Dukes declared "There should not be anyone in the state of Illinois who doesn't know what a Cornjerker is and where one comes from."

Suddenly, I have a strange urge to buy a Hoopeston Cornjerkers shirt in solidarity.

Noteworthy Cornjerkers:

Probably the most famous Hoopeston Area High School alumni is Thad Matta, who is currently the head coach of the Butler Bulldogs men's basketball team. Matta is a native to Hoopeston, was a member of the Cornjerkers basketball team during his time in high school, and went on to play college ball at Southern Illinois.

Matta has had a wickedly successful coaching career, with stops at Xavier and Ohio State. He's been the head coach of Butler since 2022 (following a stint from 2000 - 2001), and has amassed a 71-61 record.

Read more about the Hoopeston Area High School Cornjerkers on the Illinois High School Association's website.