Ole Miss made some important changes this season replacing long time mascot and Rebel fan favorite Colonel Reb with a new mascot, Rebel Black Bear. Some fans are struggling to come to terms with the fact that Colonel Reb is gone and that is to be expected. After all, nobody got the crowd going at an Ole Miss football game like Colonel Reb. While Colonel Reb’s ability to motivate the fans was great, the success of Ole Miss on the football field was minimal. Since the Colonel appeared on the sidelines in 1979, Ole Miss has not won a national championship or an SEC title. The football team’s record with Colonel Reb on the sideline is an unimpressive 140-134-4, finishing ranked only five times with him on the sidelines of Vaught-Hemingway Stadium from 1979-2003.
Even with all the years of futility under Colonel Reb’s watch some Ole Miss fans are refusing to give Rebel Black Bear a chance. Few mascots are more beloved than Colonel Reb, but even fewer mascots carry the racial stigma that he does.
Ole Miss fans have always been slower than most to accept change, and you do not have to look too far in the past to see examples of their stubborn nature. In 1997 when then chancellor Robert Khayat banned sticks from the stadium in an attempt to keep confederate flags out of sporting events, Ole Miss fans responded the same way. Even though Coach Tommy Tuberville said openly on several occasions that the confederate flags make it difficult to recruit blue-chip black athletes. Fans hid behind a misguided sense of tradition and fought the decision every step of the way, just like they are doing now with Colonel Reb. Supporters are now trying to pass a measure to put Colonel Reb on the 2012 election ballot to get him reinstated as the schools official mascot.
Do the die hard traditionalist fans at Ole Miss not see that the traditions are making it difficult to recruit black athletes? Young and talented black people are turned off by images of a plantation owner as a mascot, the confederate flag, and “Dixie”. Ole Miss is losing top recruits because the school has not progressed with the times, and when the school does try and progress fans behave in such a way that it leaves a sour taste in the mouths of people across the country, hurting the perception of the university.
Maybe Rebel Black Bear is the mascot they need to get the job done at Ole Miss. He is a ferocious beast, does not offend anybody, and he has a great back story involving former president Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt. After all, Colonel Reb’s tenure at Ole Miss was not as successful as some might think on the field, and off the field he served as a reminder of our nations painful past.
CJ Hurt covers college football for MemphiSport. Follow him @churtj09 for live tweets from games.
Photo by JD Meredith.
It was another exciting week for our TAM teams as they went a combined 5-2 with the two losses belonging to Ole Miss who played fellow TAM team Arkansas and Tennessee who lost to the No. 1 ranked Crimson Tide. Southern Miss is now bowl eligible and in control of their destiny in C-USA thanks to another conference loss by Marshall. Vandy won big over Army keeping their bowl hopes alive. Mississippi State is coming off a bye week and hopefully the Bulldogs have fixed their offensive issues. Both TAM ranking bottom dwellers won this week with Memphis beating Tulane and MTSU beating Florida Atlantic. This week’s most disappointing team is Tennessee who has lost three straight games and is 0-4 in SEC play so far this season. Without further ado, the TAMs Rankings for the week of October 26, 2011…
The top two teams in the AFC South met on Sunday at LP Field in Nashville to fight for first place within the division. Going into Sunday’s game the Tennessee Titans held a half game lead over the Houston Texans with a chance to solidify the top spot in the division. With the Titans coming off of a bye, everyone in the stadium was anticipating a great game, envisioning the Titans coming out on top.
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