Prince William's other new high school, Battlefield, which opens Sept. 7, also chose an animal mascot, the Bobcat.
Even if a mascot is widely used, principals still like it.
Marsteller Middle School in Prince William has a Bulldog mascot, but it's not nearly as ferocious as the Bulldog of Hylton High School.
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"When I personally heard Freedom High School, I thought Eagles," said Christine Forester, who will lead Loudoun's Freedom High, which will open next year. "I always thought of eagles as majestic and soaring."
Students had other ideas. Some wanted to be the Freedom Patriots. That mascot was already claimed by Loudoun's Park View High School. Then someone suggested "Freedom Fighters." That called to mind an image that Forester wasn't quite comfortable with.
"You have to think: How does it strike people?" she said.
The students were eventually presented three choices: Hawks, Flyers and Eagles. Eagles narrowly won over Hawks.
"I never dreamed it would take the amount of time it took," Forester said. "But it's the first big thing that everyone sees when they look at the school."
An unusual mascot is not always popular. Bruce Sider, athletic director for Glen Burnie High School and a graduate of the school, said there is a yearly debate about keeping the Gopher as the school's mascot. A longtime principal of the 81-year-old school, a fan of the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers, decided the school should have that mascot, and it stuck.
The students think that "the mascot has to be some fierce, angry type of thing," he said.
But Sider likes it, and he said most graduates grow to appreciate the Gopher, even if they scorned it as students. When Sider talks to athletes and parents, he said, he includes a definition of mascot, which has nothing to do with intimidating opponents.
"It's simply a good luck charm," Sider said. "I emphasize to our new athletes that's our good luck charm."
