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Center Point-Urbana school mascot crowned best high school mascot by Sports Illustrated
How a dog in a cyclone has united two communities as one
Jun. 1, 2025 5:30 am, Updated: Jun. 2, 2025 7:39 am
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CENTER POINT — It’s a tail as old as the Center Point-Urbana Community School District.
An underdog, of sorts, is being celebrated with a new title win more than 25 years after he was created to unite two rural Iowa school districts.
Stormin’ Normin, the cyclone-canine hybrid mascot representing the Center Point-Urbana Stormin’ Pointers, was crowned best high school mascot in America by Sports Illustrated on May 13 after an arduous online election.
But he’s not just another pretty face. Here’s how students represent the icon that carries 25 years of history on its back, and how a pointer dog with fearsome accessories led two school districts to unity decades ago as Center Point and Urbana merged.
A star is born
In the 1989-1990 school year, the merger between Center Point’s school district and Urbana’s school district north of Cedar Rapids started to take shape.
As sports teams were combined, the district had to answer some big questions. Who will represent this newly combined district? What symbol will be tasked not only with generating team spirit, but unity?
And a greater challenge: How do you combine the Center Point Pointers’ dog and the Urbana Cyclones’ meteorological phenomenon into one unit?
Richard Butschi, high school art teacher in Center Point from 1970 to 2003, had his work cut out for him. The new mascot needed to cohesively combine a versatility of expressions and the separate histories of two districts.
Early sketches done by hand tried through various iterations. There was a dog and a cyclone side-by-side, a cyclone formed by a dog’s wagging tail, and other early proofs of concept that were creative, but too clunky for all intents and purposes.
“It was very difficult to try to put a cyclone and a pointer together,” Butschi said. “We tried to keep the identity of both schools.”
Some renderings spread across Butschi’s kitchen table show the dog’s physiology taking a more realistic form on the horizon of a formidable storm. Others, drawn in a cartoon style that ultimately took hold, somehow made the Pointer look scarier in a less lifelike style.
Most of them incorporated the snarl of determination that is emblematic of a team’s standard-bearer at football or basketball games.
“You want to strike fear into your opponent, that’s important,” Butschi said.
Butschi, by then a teacher for about 20 years, was enlisted to develop commercial art in a way most art teachers are not.
“Art teachers don’t do this on a regular basis,” he said.
After searching for the right “spark” of artistic inspiration, he took early sketches to a meeting of two student councils.
There, one student — whose name remains unknown to this day — stated what they thought was obvious.
“Anybody got any bright ideas?” Butschi asked.
“Why don’t we put the dog in the cyclone?” the student replied.
A few drawings later, the newly reorganized school district had its mascot. Its creator’s initials remain engraved in the official logo today — unintentionally disguised, in small print, as what appears to be a clod of dirt being stirred by the whirlwind.
Butschi started to call him “Stormin’ Normin,” after a similarly formidable figure dominating American headlines during the Gulf War’s Operation Desert Storm: U.S. Army General Norman Schwartzkopf.
Normin’s modern era
The Stormin’ Normin that spectators recognize today on the field and court is a manifestation of faux fur stitched together in 2005.
High school science teacher and cheer coach Melissa James, Normin’s keeper for over 20 years, said that was the year the district wanted to raise funds to design a mascot costume. It was also the year that Normin’s name became official with a vote of the student body.
The costume for a dog within a cyclone — a bit more complex than the average animal mascot — had to be custom made by a company in Canada.
James, by then a teacher and cheer coach for 10 years, used the renewed interest in the mascot to bring him to life with lessons from the University of Iowa. Through contacts like Gregg Niemiec, spirit coordinator for the Iowa Spirit Squads, Center Point-Urbana students have been privy to some of the same valuable training that makes Herky the Hawk so iconic.
Over the last 20 years, James’ students have learned through skits, training from University of Iowa cheerleaders, and field trips to watch Herky work the crowds at the Carver-Hawkeye Arena.
Unlike universities that are more selective of mascot applicants, any student with interest can play Stormin’ Normin or his handler. James typically manages a small team of up to 12 students each year.
The identity behind Normin is kept a secret until a reveal at the end of each school year.
What it takes to be a mascot
“There’s a lot of pride to be Pointers,” James said. “We are a unique mascot.”
Playing a cartoon dog in real life is perfected through skits and character training to help standardize the persona, no matter which student is bringing him to life.
“Your actions are bigger and crazier,” James said. “It’s real life improv, but you can’t talk.”
If the ball goes rolling, Normin chases after it. If a fan scratches an itch, Normin’s foot assists in tandem.
If the stakes are low and Normin needs a break, he might take a nap on the floor. When kids are frightened by the larger-than-life character, he validates their feelings by covering his eyes with his floppy ears.
With a very limited field of vision thanks to mesh eyes and a big nose, Normin usually lets spectators come to him. His handler plays an important role in helping him navigate energetic environments.
This year, James’ son animated Normin. After years of watching others do it, he said it came naturally.
“You just have fun, that’s it,” said Kyle James. “I just shut off my brain and do it.”
In addition to school games, Normin attends Corridor community events like the Especially For You Race Against Breast Cancer in Cedar Rapids and Heartland Heroes Day in Coralville. In previous years, he has competed in mascot competitions.
Taking the crown
This year’s Sports Illustrated competition of high school mascots was powered by online voting. Stormin’ Normin, in true underdog fashion, came up from behind for a stunning finish.
The mascot, in the Final Four stage of the national competition, was down 25,000 points before a social media blitz and voting campaign pushed him over the top by about 12,000 points. That’s no small feat in the district, whose namesake towns have a combined population of about 4,000.
“The social media chatter and people communicating — older generations, younger generations — it was fun to watch that in the Sports Illustrated contest,” Melissa James said.
In addition to Sports Illustrated, Stormin’ Normin made it to the championship level this year in a contest hosted by The64.com.
As James retires, she said the school has plans to make Normin’s logo even more visible as a unifying icon throughout Center Point and Urbana.
After years of channeling school spirit through Normin, the show of support for him from Pointers young and old has been heartwarming.
“Center Point was its own community, and Urbana was its own. They’ve really become this one school community, and they get behind Stormin’ Normin, and the show of support has been phenomenal,” she said. “You feel it — you feel that spirit.”
Comments: Features reporter Elijah Decious can be reached at (319) 398-8340 or elijah.decious@thegazette.com.
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