"Our Team Will Fight Like Cavemen!": The Sentence's Growth, Stage by Stage

1922 or 1923–today · from a placard to the city's standing property

Stage one — the utterance, in its two tellings: The sentence's birth stands in this record in two accounts that cannot both be right, and the growth tracing begins by printing both, as the Sports record prints them whole. In the school corporation's account — Robert D. Smith, former Mishawaka coach, teacher and principal, in the School City of Mishawaka's newsletter of October 2015 — Mishawaka was playing South Bend High School at Cartier Field, Notre Dame's ground, in 1922 or 1923; the game stood scoreless at halftime; and an ardent fan, Curt Johnson — in later years the keeper of a greenhouse on South Spring Street — held up a sign reading "OUR TEAM WILL FIGHT LIKE CAVEMEN!" Mishawaka won, and, in Smith's telling, the name was adopted from that day. In the second telling, a 2015 season-preview history (usa-365), the year is 1919, the opponent South Bend Central, and the mechanism a sportswriter overhearing a cheerleader's cry, with the team — the Maroons before — "officially Cavemen since the 1930s or so." The Sports file settles neither, and neither does this entry: what grew is not in dispute, only its first hour.

Stage two — the adoption: On either telling the before-and-after is the same, and it is documented at both ends. Before: the team played as the Maroons. After: the name Cavemen, in the corporation's telling adopted on the spot by acclamation — the same mechanism, as the Culture record notes, by which the city had adopted its princess: a piece of folk invention by a private citizen, kept because it fit. Smith's account carries the community's standing boast with it, printed here as the attributed claim it is: that Mishawaka is believed to be the only school in the country with a caveman for a mascot.

Stage three — the press life: Through the middle of the century the name lived where school names live, in the sports pages, and the Sports record's own headings measure the naturalization: the Cavemen of the newspaper-championship era (the titles of 1920, 1925 and 1926 the record gathers under the name), the Cavemen before 30,000 at Notre Dame Stadium against South Bend Central in 1930, "Cavemen basketball" and "Cavemen football" as the ordinary nouns of the valley's coverage, the school gymnasium itself renamed in the word's image — The Cave. By mid-century, on the Sports file's finding, the name was in full civic use: no longer a quotation, no longer attributed, simply what Mishawaka's teams were called by everyone, including the papers of the rival city across the river.

Stage four — the standing property: A century on, the sentence's noun is the school's official identity and the city's second durable folk coinage, beside the princess. Mishawaka High School's own published profile in November 2026 states it flatly — "School Mascot: Cavemen" — with the maroon and white the name has always worn; the teams compete under it in the Northern Lakes Conference; the girls' teams carry the form the region's papers have long used, the Lady Cavemen; and a Caveman statue at the school embodies it for the building's second century, as the school's 2026 centennial-era accounts show. Curt Johnson's placard is gone; no artifact of the sign stands in the record reached. What stands is the sentence's result, complete: a fan's halftime boast, in capital letters, become the name under which a city's young people have competed for a hundred years — the one Mishawaka folk invention, as this section's names entry observes, that the city never once mistook for history.

Sources:

1. School City of Mishawaka newsletter, October 2015 — Robert D. Smith's account: the Cartier Field game of 1922 or 1923, scoreless at halftime, Curt Johnson's sign ("OUR TEAM WILL FIGHT LIKE CAVEMEN!"), the win, the adoption, Johnson's later greenhouse on South Spring Street, and the only-school claim, attributed.
2. usa-365 season-preview history, 2015 — the second telling: 1919, South Bend Central, the overheard cheerleader's cry, "officially Cavemen since the 1930s or so"; carried whole in this history's Sports record, which settles neither telling.
3. This history, Sports record — the Maroons before; the name in full civic use by mid-century; the gymnasium as The Cave; the newspaper-era titles and the 1930 game before 30,000.
4. This history, Culture record — the adoption-by-acclamation mechanism, and the sentence at telling size.
5. Mishawaka High School, "About Us" (mhs.mishawakaschools.com), read November 2026 — "School Mascot: Cavemen"; the school's conference and colors as published; the 2026 school-history accounts (Round the Bend, October 2026) — the Caveman statue at the 1924 building, the Maroons as the original nickname.