Rhinelander Hodags win landslide victory in poll for 'Best High School Mascot in America'

The people have spoken. According to Scorebook Live, an online news platform for high school sports, the Rhinelander Hodags won the top prize for "Best High School Mascot in America" after voting ended Tuesday night.

The Hodags went head-to-head with 12 other high school mascots across America, like the Shelley Russets from Idaho and the Poca Dots from West Virginia. The Hodags had already won in its own mascot category for "Best Mythical Creature."

It easily captured the top prize: out of over 270,000 recorded votes, the Hodags won 183,455, capturing 63% of the vote. The second-place winner, the Shelley Russets, had only 72,502 votes.

But what the heck is a hodag?

A hodag is a mythical creature that supposedly lives in the Wisconsin Northwoods and is the result of a hoax created by Eugene Shepard in 1893. Supposedly, the hodag arose from the cremated remains of oxen who had worked in lumberyards.

In a column for a Rhinelander newspaper, Shepard claimed the creature, which is green with spikes on its tail and large horns and teeth, "assumes the strength of an ox, the ferocity of a bear, the cunning of a fox and the sagacity of a hindoo snake, and is truly the most feared animal the lumbermen come in contact with."

Since then, Rhinelander has embraced the hodag as its icon, with sculptures, shops and mascots paying tribute to the fictional beast.

More:Hodag: The outlandish story of Wisconsin's mythical beast, on its 125th birthday

Contact Rebecca Loroff at 920-907-7801 or rloroff@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter: @RebeccaLoroff.

This article originally appeared on Wausau Daily Herald: Rhinelander Hodags win poll for 'Best High School Mascot in America'