The students at Ole Miss are voting today about whether Ole Miss should have a mascot. The question is over a new one, and I’ve heard three basic student positions– one group saying “a no vote supports Colonel Rebel,” one group earnestly advocating voting yes and moving forward , and one group saying “Lets have a squid-like character who led the rebels against the empire in Star Wars.” There’s a debate about whether the last suggestion is a trap.
The squid reminds me of a campaign in the mid-70s to vote Tilda the Turkey for homecoming queen. The legend was that the earnest Greek students counting the votes counted write-ins for Tilda, the Turkey, and Tilda the Turkey as for three different candidates to avoid a win for poultry. I personally wrote in Tilda the Turkey and felt robbed.
In any event, WMC-TV 5 says they’ll be live down here for the vote, and there’s a longish AP story running– here is what ran in the Times Picayune.
Colonel Reb shall not rise again. That much is certain.
The University of Mississippi dumped the mascot — a caricature of a white plantation owner — in a 2003 effort to distance the school from Old South stereotypes. It’s been without a mascot ever since. A vote Tuesday could change that.
Students will have only two choices in the online referendum: yes, replace the colonel with something else — perhaps a riverboat gambler or a Colonial soldier — or no, remain the only school in the Southeastern Conference without a mascot.
In a world where football is akin to religion, and sports symbolism carries the power of a totem, this is no small matter. Stories about the vote have run prominently in the campus newspaper for weeks, along with “Save Colonel Reb” advertisements.
“We’re tired of having nothing to represent us,” said junior Josh Hinton, a member of the Associated Student Body, which approved a resolution calling for the vote. “We’ve gotten our song taken away. We want to have some kind of tradition back.”
Ole Miss, with its pristine lawns and white-columned buildings, has struggled for more than a decade with how to retain that tradition while shedding symbols of the Old South. It’s all part of an effort to remove past racial tensions that date back to 1962, when a deadly riot followed James Meredith’s attempt to become the university’s first black student.
In 1997, the school ended the waving of Confederate flags at sporting events. Then Colonel Reb was booted off the field. Last year, the band stopped playing the fight song, “From Dixie with Love,” to discourage the fan chant, “The South will rise again.”
Koriann Porter, a black sophomore who collected more than 1,700 student signatures in support of a new mascot, said much has changed on campus since the civil rights era. The school has clubs devoted to embracing its diversity, and 15 percent of the 18,344 students are black. The state has a black population of 37.2 percent.
“When it comes to racial reconciliation, we embody the utopian society,” she said.
aybe not altogether utopian: Richard McKay, vice president of the Associated Student Body, said he had received some hate e-mail about the vote.
“We’ve gotten a lot of input whether it was asked for or not,” said McKay, who is white. “A lot of students are afraid that as soon as we have a new mascot, everyone will forget about Colonel Reb.”
Still, Colonel Reb hasn’t disappeared altogether from the university. Ole Miss holds the license to the image so it’s still on bumper stickers, lapel pins and other merchandise on display at Rebel games.
Other vestiges of the Old South can also be found on campus. The Mississippi state flag, with its Confederate battle emblem, is still flown and the team nickname remains the Rebels, adopted in 1936 after a group of sports writers voted to replace the Flood. That won’t change even if the mascot does.
Ole Miss isn’t the only Southern university that still winces over a painful heritage stretching from antebellum slavery though the Civil War, Jim Crow and the modern civil rights struggles.
At the University of Alabama last year, an event involving members of the Kappa Alpha Order dressed as Confederate soldiers drew complaints from a black sorority. The fraternity later apologized.
In Thibodaux, La., Nicholls State University reinvented its colonel mascot in 2009 after retiring the previous “Col. Tillou” amid concern that the figure recalled a uniformed Confederate officer.
While the university has made it clear there’s no going back to the goateed Colonel Reb, his fans remain loyal and vocal.
“The majority of students I talked to feel they’d rather have no mascot if they can’t have Colonel Reb, and that’s going to be evident,” said Hannah Loy, a senior from Natchez. She’s part of the Colonel Reb Foundation, which is urging students to vote “no” to a new mascot.
A variation of the colonel first appeared in the 1930s in a yearbook. The image of the white character in a red wide-brimmed hat and tuxedo, leaning on a cane, is believed to have been based on a black man named Blind Jim Ivy, who attended most of the school’s athletic events, according to school historian David Sansing. The colonel made the official transition to the field in 1979.
Hinton says he’s been searching the Internet for ideas on a new image to replace him. He thinks a riverboat gambler or a Colonial soldier modeled on a New England patriot could work. McKay said there’s been some talk about using a cardinal in a nod to the Cardinal Club, a school spirit organization that was recently revived. The club, started in 1927, uses a logo featuring the bird.
Chancellor Dan Jones said the administration will support whatever decision the students make.
They’re not the only ones closely watching the vote. Alum Bob Dunlap, 80, who’s in the tire business, said he has donated about $1 million to Ole Miss athletics over the years, but he’ll likely stop if Colonel Reb is removed from the campus entirely. He said the vote is unnecessary.
“Everybody liked that little guy at those ball games,” Dunlap said. “They just create a lot of bad feeling when they do these type of things.”
weird aside: Can it be a coincidence that the squid-like character’s name is contained within the name of an Oxford restaurant?
snACKBAR!
The sort of odd thing you notice on an internet search.
There was also Roxanne Boulder who won Homecoming Queen sometime in the early 70s but was cruelly disqualified for not being a human being.
NMC didn’t Ole Miss use a “Mr. Clean” guy as a mascot? Maybe right after they did away with Col Reb? What happened to him?
The students ought to be up in arms over Ole Miss’s inferior academic rankings. Mascots may come and mascots may go, but Ole Miss remains mired in Tier 3 or 4, depending on who is doing the scaling. I hope to live long enough to see Ole Miss ranked near the top of Tier 2 rankings … maybe even Tier 1. It can be done, but there’s a long way to go and a choice of mascots is purely chasin’ rabbits.
I think the two are related, Ben. Energy spent on the Lost Cause is energy not spent on academic excellence. And it’s a zero-sum game….didn’t Newton say there is a finite amount of energy in this world?
My suggestion for the new mascot is John Yoo.
Though when someone dresses up in a big puffy Yoo costume, there will probably be some Asian-American students pitching a fuss. You can’t please everyone.
What would old Blind Jim Ivy think if he could see what is going on today?
WS
WS: He would think he had been cured?
Hatfield, the Mr. Clean thing rings a very faint bell.
Ben: Bread and circuses. Which may be what Plexix is saying.
Glancing at today’s Mississippian, I see there’s an odd split in the “pro-Colonel-Reb” vote– the vocal and up-front faction is saying “vote NO because we already have our mascot,” while the other faction says “that’s a trap” (thus Ackbar) and a no vote means that there will be no student participation in the selection of a mascot (which is literally what the vote will decide).
The vote-no group is obviously the tea party element.
The “Rebel Brusier” (Col. Reb’s head on a football player) and the “Rowdy Rebel” (the bald one) were both proposed some time back. Neither got much traction. I first found the images on a partisan post:
http://blogcritics.org/sports/article/ole-miss-gives-up-on-pc/
“A variation of the colonel first appeared in the 1930s in a yearbook. The image of the white character in a red wide-brimmed hat and tuxedo, leaning on a cane, is believed to have been based on a black man named Blind Jim Ivy, who attended most of the school’s athletic events, according to school historian David Sansing. ”
I knew the creator of the colonel image in that Ole Miss yearbook. When I was a child, this gentleman lived in my hometown and served as the City Judge. I would serve him soft drinks, milk shakes, etc. in my family’s drugstore at our soda fountain. He told me about his role in the creation of the caricature that eventually became known as Colonel Rebel. With all due respect to David Sansing, I think he is wrong. According to this gentleman, his caricature in that Ole Miss yearbook was indeed based upon what an old south plantation owner might look like. I disussed this with this gentleman on more than one occasion. And during our discussions, he never mentioned to me anything about basing the caricature on “Blind Jim”. Now, there is no doubt that there is a striking resemblance of the Colonel Reb caricature (as we knew it once it became an on-field mascot and its image given legal protection) and Blind Jim. Also, there was a lengthy period of time between the original caricature of the Colonel appearing in the Ole Miss yearbook and the use of Colonel Reb as an on-field mascot (a relatively recent thing, not as traditional as many presume — I don’t think the Col caricature made an appearance on the field until sometime in the 70s). So, in defense of Sansing, I suppose it is possible that Blind Jim was an influence over the metamorphis of the original yearbook caricature into the one that eventually became known as Col. Reb —I don’t think the two are identical. All I know is that the original creator of that caricature, as it appeared in that early yearbook, most likely did not use Blind Jim as his inspiration. Had he done so, I think he would have told me that fact, because a description of Blind Jim and his influence over the caricature would have made the story even better.
Martin, I too remember Roxanne and always admired how she handled the disappointment like a rock.
Yes, Tightlip, and the loss didn’t deter Roxanne’s workout regime either…what a hardbody.
I’m with AFOTL and doubting Dr. Sansing’s theory (as much as I respect his ownership of the subject of Ole Miss and Mississippi history).
Ben,
A school’s academic rankings are essentially determined by its admission standards. You simply can’t have a great university with classes full of fairly dull students. Because of various federal court edicts, Ole Miss must have extremely low admission standards — some of the lowest in the nation. As long as the admission standards are low, Ole Miss will be bottom or third tier.
“Ole Miss will be bottom or third tier.”
While I disagree with this characterization of Ole Miss, if being “third tier” also means being more open and receptive and providing higher educational opportunities to a broader segment of our state’s population, then I can live with that characterization. Ultimately, like life itself, your education is your personal responsibility — no matter what college you attend, college is largely what you make it to be. You can be accepted into and graduate from one of the most elite, prestigious schools in the country, and still be an idiot — the crazy Harvard educated female prof at the University of Alabama is a living testament to this fact.
Rebelyell: I’m glad you brought up the admissions non-standard … opens the door to my beating the drum again for taking Ole Miss private. It will never happen … Mississippi recoils from opportunities to excel in education. But it could and should be done.
Ha…funniest thing I read on this post was:
“The students ought to be up in arms over Ole Miss’s inferior academic rankings. Mascots may come and mascots may go, but Ole Miss remains mired in Tier 3 or 4, depending on who is doing the scaling. I hope to live long enough to see Ole Miss ranked near the top of Tier 2 rankings … maybe even Tier 1. It can be done, but there’s a long way to go and a choice of mascots is purely chasin’ rabbits.”
Umm just because Ole Miss is in Oxford doesn’t mean its Oxford University. You obviously didn’t go to school there, as being a top tier academic school has never been a priority…(ie. “We may never win a game, but we’ll never lose a party.”) Pull your head out of your *ss and go to Vanderbilt for your Top Tier education. Do not go to Ole Miss for anything besides 4 years of a debaucherous good time, and that makes me proud to be Ole Miss alum. Oh, and did I mention the girls? Yeah, um, Vanderbilt doesn’t hold a candle to the Rebel women…good luck douche!
AFOTL, that “crazy Harvard educated female prof” was not at the Univerisity of Alabama. She was at UAH, the University at Huntsville. Big difference. Bigger than the difference between Itawamba Community College at Fulton and Itawamba Community College at Tupelo, if you can comprehend a gulf that wide.
“Bigger than the difference between Itawamba Community College at Fulton and Itawamba Community College at Tupelo, if you can comprehend a gulf that wide.”
Apparently I can’t. Why don’t you explain what you mean by that statement?
BTW, sorry for the error re the school the crazy Harvard educated prof. was working at the time of her rampage.
Massachussets simply unloaded another load of fertilizer southwards .This time to Rocket City NOT TUSCALOOSA.