This is the first in a series of posts exploring team names in different categories. Don’t worry, we’ll get to the animals eventually. First up, though, trees! I’m going to ignore the city/region signifier, but if you’re interested in my take, check it out here. The short version is that I prefer Raleigh to Carolina, but some ideas just fit better with one or the other.
Let’s start with the most obvious and most suggested: Raleigh Oaks. Raleigh is the city of oaks. We have oak trees aplenty. I recently met someone wearing a Raleigh Oaks jersey because that is an existing baseball team. I like this team name. It’s not my favorite, but I like it. Oak trees are strong and sturdy. It also fits with my city name preference, because it has to be the Raleigh Oaks (Carolina Oaks doesn’t really make sense).
We might as well pause and scan the landscape for existing tree-derived team names. There are not many. As one reader pointed out, Stanford has done well with a tree-centric brand. Technically they are named after the color red “Cardinal” but a Redwood tree is the emblem for all their teams. The best part is the wacky dancing tree mascot that has emerged. Truly bizarre and pretty great.
The only other tree-based team names in common sports coverage are the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Ohio State Buckeyes. They’re both strong brands with recognizable logos. There are a handful of professional teams in minor league markets doing tree-related names, but it’s a rare thing overall. Rare is fun! But rare probably also means it’s a little weird. And it is! Most team names you can picture the players embodying some aspect or characteristic of the team. Detroit’s players may be fierce like tigers. Arizona’s players may strike quick like diamondback snakes. And so on. Trees have admirable qualities, they just tend to play out over the long run rather than in the span of a baseball game.
The next best/obvious tree is pine. There are many species of pine native to the Carolinas as I mentioned here. All the references to tar in NC sports (UNC Tarheels) relate back to pine in one way or another. Pine tar has a long history in boat making and baseball alike. We probably can’t have the Raleigh Pines in the way Raleigh Oaks works. We need a bit more. The Pine Barons was a name once considered for a minor league club in Jersey and is … not great. The Pine State Brigade was suggested in this design contest and is definitely an interesting take.
The third tree I consider a natural fit is the Dogwood tree. It has the official honor of being the North Carolina state…. flower (the blooms of the tree anyway). I think I like this the best of the three obvious trees. It doesn’t really do anything sitting there on the page/screen Raleigh Dogwoods, but there is unique potential. Let it grow in some dark corner of your mind, I bet you’ll warm to it. Especially if we play off the “dog” part with some animal variations. The tree remains the main emblem (like Stanford), but the mascot can represent the NC State Dog- the Plotthound. Spoiler alert- that is one of my favorite options in the animal category. Or, we can play off the unofficial state dog, the “lab-mix.” We’ll leave those critters for another day.
As for a few remaining tree-related scraps- something about sap? Saplings? How about we see the forest for the trees (as the saying goes)- Grove, Forest? There are probably some possibilities with Evergreen as a theme. Timber calls to mind the lumber and trades element. You don’t really think about lumberjacks outside of the west I suppose, but there is plenty of logging in NC history. No, I won’t be considering the Palmetto. It’s too closely associated with SC alone and is technically not even a tree (more like a grass or bamboo botanically)!
