Ferriday High School’s mascot might be a Trojan, but during football season, the team goes by a different moniker — Junkyard Dogs.

Junkyard Dogs, or JYD for short, isn’t just a nickname, it’s a tradition at Ferriday and an attitude that permeates through the football program.

“At a junkyard or salvage yard, you’ll have a junkyard dog that guards his territory,” Ferriday coach Freddie Harrison said. “There’s a difference between a watch dog and a junkyard dog. A watch dog will bark at anything that comes near, while a junkyard dog knows who is not welcome and knows what he’s got to do. We’ll do whatever it takes to guard our territory.”

The junkyard dog tradition began in the 1980s when the Trojans were playing for state championships with some regularity.

“They probably had the best defense in the state of Louisiana,” Harrison said. “They took their game to the next level.”

As the team’s fortunes waned somewhat, so did the junkyard dogs name. But the moniker is back in full force now with the teams’ recent success, which includes a 34-13 record the past four seasons.

“It’s nothing I did, the kids brought it back when they started playing great defense the past couple of years,” Harrison said.

The JYD is everywhere on a football Friday at Ferriday.

The team marches out on the field holding a JYD sign before kickoff and the three letters are painted in one of the field’s end zones.

But while the junkyard dogs are a Ferriday tradition, not every player is a junkyard player. Only a special few have that honor.

“There are regular players and junkyard players,” Harrison said. “The regular players have to step their game up to the next level to become junkyard players. They’ve got to have that killer instinct. That tenacity that says nobody is going to disrespect you and come and take over your field.”

And there’s nothing specific a player has to do to become a junkyard player, Harrison said. You just know.

“You can tell a difference between who is a junkyard player and who isn’t,” Harrison said. “Those who are are difference makers. They’ll do something in a game to change momentum. You don’t get a sticker or a stripe for being a junkyard player, it’s just something that you know within yourself, you’ve got that killer instinct in you.”

Linebacker Marques Lewis and wide receiver and kick and punt returner Devante Scott both carry the JYD title in Ferriday. Both will be seniors next season.

“It means a lot to be a junkyard player,” Lewis said. “It takes a lot of hard work on and off the field. Only a few get the opportunity and you have to take advantage of it.”

Scott said being known as a junkyard player brings an added responsibility.

“It means I’ve got to step up and be more of a leader,” Scott said. “I’ve got to do my part to take the team as far as we can go.”

While some sports traditions or rituals, like Ferriday’s, are long-lasting and help shape the team’s personality, others only last a short period of time and are more quirky.

Such was the case with the Cathedral baseball program.

The Green Wave are traditionally strong at baseball and usually go deep into the playoffs.

However, when they won the state championship in 2003, they not only had great talent, but also a little good luck on their side in the form of Chief Knockahoma.

“You’re going to laugh when I say this, but it was a coconut that was painted up like an Indian,” Cathedral baseball coach Craig Beesley said. “One of the kids brought it to a game one day, and we won that game pretty good, so it carried on from there.”

The team sat the coconut beside the bat rack during each game, and carried it with them throughout their playoff run, which ended with a state championship.

“Charley Lane was in charge of keeping it up for us and he brought it to every game,” Beesley said. “The kids really rallied around it. When something went good for us, they’d think that’s what was doing it for them.”

And after Chief Knockahoma helped the Green Wave win the state title, the little coconut has become something of a legend around the Cathedral baseball program.

“It’s something the kids always talked about,” Beesley said. “They still talk about it today.”

Following Cathedral’s state title, Chief Knockahoma went into retirement, and was replaced with a hunter’s duck decoy called the Yard Bird.

“It was sitting in the back of somebody’s truck one day behind the outfield fence, when one of our players hit a home run,” Beesley said. “The home run ball hit the duck, and that’s where that got started.”

And while the Yard Bird hasn’t been as successful a Chief Knockahoma, it still sits in the Cathedral dugout in an attempt to lead the Green Wave to another state championship.

Whether a team’s traditions or rituals are entrenched in the team’s character like Ferriday’s Junkyard Dogs or just a fun, quirky good luck charm like Cathedral’s Chief Knockahoma and the Yard Bird, they are greatly beneficial to the teams.

“It gives these kids something to take pride in,” Harrison said. “They have something to strive for and a goal to reach.”