It's OK to use the same word twice. Really.

It's, you know, OK to use prepositions. You even did it yourself.

 

I also love when metro papers use names in prep headlines, like "Pennypacker leads St. Cletus"

If 99.999999999 percent of the people who get your paper don't know who that is, why would you use it in the headline?

 

I'm in a small area (eight schools in our tri-county coverage area). All eight teams have different mascots, so the usage isn't much of a problem.

Further up the road I've got the Louisville Courier-Journal, but even the C-J will use mascots when it comes to certain schools (Sacred Heart Valkyries, Trinity Shamrocks or Rocks, DeSales Colts).

And when it comes to college sports in Kentucky, I can safely use Cardinals or Wildcats and not have my readers getting them confused with Davidson, Arizona, Northwestern, Kansas State, Ball State or Lamar.

We have an unwritten rule on no mentioning of mascot on first reference of team unless it is the full team name ("in the Kentucky Wildcats' win Tuesday night"). After that, Wildcats is fine (and UK and Cats in columns).

 

I agree that nicknames are overused. In stories, fine. In roundups, where you have maybe a graf or two on each game, I'd rather ditch them. I think they are confusing to a lot of readers and they also invite an error in a big roundup.

If you misspell Jimmy Hotshot's name, you might not hear a peep. If you call the Lions the Panthers, you are gonna get calls.