Unusual Nicknames: Dardanelle Sand Lizards

Dardanelle High School’s cherished Sand Lizards mascot originated from a century-old insult.

During a 1923 football game in Dardanelle, Arkansas, a rival coach criticized the field’s terrain, saying it was only fit for sand lizards. Dardanelle played its home games a mile from the Arkansas River, leading to sandy conditions on its gridiron.

A year later, the school turned the negative comments into a point of pride and adopted its Sand Lizards nickname. Today, Dardanelle is believed to be the only high school in the country with Sand Lizards as its mascot.

In 2017, a group of Dardanelle alumni established the non-profit Sand Lizard Foundation. Foundation research identified the site of Dardanelle’s first football field, and a monument was placed there in 2023—100 years after the mascot’s origin.

The foundation began awarding college scholarships in 2019 and remains active throughout the year, hosting alumni events, raising money to support students, and even creating the “Sand Lizard Moms,” a volunteer group that maintains contact with scholarship students.

If you ever visit Dardanelle, don’t bother looking for actual sand lizards—you won’t find any. While members of the lizard family live in Arkansas and North America, the sand lizard species is native to Europe and Asia.