History Main / TheWildcats

* {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d [[http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/story?columnist=forde_pat&id=4029728&sportCat=ncb in this article,]] on a "likability index" involving the teams in NCAA basketball's 2010 Final Four: "If your mascot is a Husky, deduct one point for triteness. If your mascot is a Wildcat, deduct two points for JustForFun/{{egregious}} triteness." This same sportswriter puts out a "likability index" every year, and in 2018 he lampshaded this trope [[https://sports.yahoo.com/likable-final-four-team-heres-definitive-guide-root-team-isnt-023442382.html again]] with "If your school’s nickname and mascot are Wildcats, deduct 10 points for triteness."

** Which is the [[HistoryRepeats second time]] the SEC has had three sets of Tigers. While Mizzou didn't join until 2012, Sewanee, a small private school out of Tennessee, was in the SEC from the league's founding in 1932 until it left in 1940.

Definitely TruthInTelevision. Nor is this trope confined to high school: the sports teams of the University of Arizona, Bethune-Cookman University, Davidson College, Kansas State, University of Kentucky, University of New Hampshire, Northwestern University, Villanova, and Weber State (not an exhaustive list) are all RealLife Wildcats.

* Goldie Hawn was in a 1986 film called... ''Film/Wildcats1986''. Her dream was to coach high school football. Guess what the name of the team is... go on, guess.

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

* The Southeastern Conference of NCAA Division I FBS football has THREE universities (Auburn, LSU, and Mizzou) that share the same team name: Tigers.

* A ''third'' D-I league, the Atlantic 10 Conference (which doesn't play football), also has three members with the same nickname: Fordham, Rhode Island, and VCU. In this case, the shared nickname is Rams. While Fordham and URI have football teams, they avert this trope by being members of different conferences in that sport (respectively the Patriot League and Colonial Athletic Association).

One use for this trope is to make a gentle dig at the NCAA's naming policies. While the name Wildcats is historically popular, the number of teams vaguely named after cats and birds has exploded recently as schools try to get away from older, politically incorrect nicknames (e.g. "We're the Sabrecats. We used to be the Savages, but we had to change that"). See PoliticalCorrectnessGoneMad.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' {{lampshaded}} this trope in "Bart Star":
-->'''Ned Flanders:''' Who are we?\\
'''Springfield Wildcats:''' The Wildcats!\\
'''Flanders:''' Who are we gonna beat?\\
'''Springfield Wildcats:''' The Wildcats!

* The football team from Prudence's high school in ''Film/{{Across the Universe}}''.

Not to be confused with the superhero comic series ''{{Comicbook/Wildcats}}.''

* Superhero teams aren't immune to this. Just ask [=WildStorm=] Comics' ''{{ComicBook/Wildcats}}.''

* Goldie Hawn was in a 1986 film called... ''Film/{{Wildcats}}''. Her dream was to coach high school football. Guess what the name of the team is... go on, guess.

* A ''third'' D-I league, the Atlantic 10 Conference (which doesn't play football), also has three members with the same nickname: Fordham, Rhode Island, and VCU. In this case, the shared nickname is Rams.

* A second D-I league, the Atlantic 10 Conference (which doesn't play football), also has three members with the same nickname: Fordham, Rhode Island, and VCU. In this case, the shared nickname is Rams.

* The Southeastern Conference of NCAA D1-FBS Football have THREE universities (Auburn, LSU, and Mizzou) that share the same team name: Tigers.
** Also, in the 2020 College Football Championship, the two universities (The aforementioned LSU, and Clemson, which is in the Atlantic Coast Confrence) are both named, you guessed it, the Tigers.

This trope tends to run in two flavors. When the team and its struggles are central to the plot, they are likely to be the Wildcats because it's a safely neutral name (i.e. not under the claim and copyright of someone who could sue the work to kingdom come). The implication is that the writers needed a placeholder name, and the Wildcats will do. When the team is not the focus of the plot, calling them the Wildcats make them sound like the local sports team of Anytown, USA; a placeholder ''team'' rather than merely a placeholder name. This flavor often comes up in sitcoms and cartoons, especially when the plot centers on a character trying to make "the team" or go to "the game."

* When Cuddy asked, "The janitor's closet ''here''?" in response to hearing that Cameron and Chase had been having liaisons in the janitor's closet, Series/{{House}} sarcastically replied, "No, the one at the local high school. Go Tigercats!"[[note]]This may have been a slightly fictionalized local in-joke. ''House'' is set in a slightly fictionalized Central UsefulNotes/NewJersey, specifically in the area around Princeton; as Princeton University's mascot is the Tigers, the two high schools in town (the public Princeton High and the private Princeton Day School) are called the Tigers and the Panthers.[[/note]]

[[folder:Web Originals]]

Not to be confused with the superhero comic series ''Comicbook/{{Wildcats}}''

* Superhero teams aren't immune to this. Just ask [=WildStorm=] Comics' ComicBook/WildCATs.

* [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] [[http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/story?columnist=forde_pat&id=4029728&sportCat=ncb in this article,]] on a "likability index": "If your mascot is a Husky, deduct one point for triteness. If your mascot is a Wildcat, deduct two points for JustForFun/{{egregious}} triteness."

* When Cuddy asked, "The janitor's closet ''here''?" in response to hearing that Cameron and Chase had been having liaisons in the janitor's closet, Series/{{House}} sarcastically replied, "No, the one at the local high school. Go Tigercats!"[[note]]This may have been a slightly fictionalized local in-joke; ''House'' is set in a slightly fictionalized Central UsefulNotes/NewJersey, specifically in the area around Princeton; as Princeton University's mascot is the Tigers, the two high schools in town (the public Princeton High and the private Princeton Day School) are called the Tigers and the Panthers.[[/note]]

* In ''Groove Squad'' [[MadeForTVMovie (a made-for-TV animated film from Nickelodeon),]] the mascot for Bay City High School is the "wildcat," the mascot costume for which looks like a smiling fat tiger. The person with the job of the mascot is Zeke, one of the movie's lead characters, and he appears to wear his mascot costume everywhere--in fact, he's only seen in one other outfit outside of his mascot costume (a tuxedo he wears at his HighSchoolDance at the end of the movie).

* [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] [[http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/story?columnist=forde_pat&id=4029728&sportCat=ncb in this article,]] on a "likability index": "If your mascot is a Husky, deduct one point for triteness. If your mascot is a Wildcat, deduct two points for {{egregious}} triteness."

* In ''Groove Squad'' [[MadeForTVMovie (a made-for-TV animated film from Nickelodeon),]] the mascot for Bay City High School (which the three main characters attend) is the "wildcat." The three main characters (named Chrissy, Ping and Mac) are all cheerleaders at the high school, with Chrissy as the head cheerleader, and their closest male friend, Zeke (who eventually becomes Ping's boyfriend), is the school mascot.

* Claire's original highschool football team on ''{{Series/Heroes}}'': The Wildcats.

* When Cuddy asked, "The janitor's closet ''here''?" in response to hearing that Cameron and Chase had been having liaisons in the janitor's closet, Series/{{House}} sarcastically replied, "No, the one at the local high school. Go Tigercats!"

* ''WesternAnimation/TheLooneyTunesShow'': In "Bobcats on Three!", Daffy is recruited to coach the school water polo team, the Bobcats. (Which makes very little sense as the name of a water polo team.)

* The Pee Wee Hockey League team ''Series/MacGyver'' belonged to as a boy, as seen in the episode "Harry's Will".

* A plot point in ''Film/{{Speed}}''. (A nod to the aforementioned real-life Arizona Wildcats.)

* [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] [[http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/story?columnist=forde_pat&id=4029728&sportCat=ncb in this article]], on a "likability index": "If your mascot is a Husky, deduct one point for triteness. If your mascot is a Wildcat, deduct two points for {{egregious}} triteness."