There is actually strong sentiment on campus for no mascot. We haven’t had one for years and seem do be doing just fine. It was also an issue when the big vote happened. Several people mentioned to me that this seems to be coming from left field. “Why are we even voting? I don’t want a mascot.”

But it seems that the admin is pushing SO strong for a new one, that we’re stuck trying to figure out who or what to pick. If we don’t then they’ll just pick one for us. I’ve heard a black bear named rebel, the Ole Miss. flood, a cardinal (along with something related to a magnolia tree) or some other version Col. Reb that isn’t “offensive,” or named “rebel.” Maybe just “Col.”

But I have a feeling that a lot of the input given will be “no mascot at all.” But the students won’t listen to that, they want to be remembered as the one who picked a new face for Ole Miss.

But Alan, you don’t understand. “Ole Miss” is next.

Humble suggestion....Ole Miss....was the irony intentional?

I vote for “dixie cups”. They sure are a lot of them used on saturdays at Ole Miss.

Coming from someone who has an indentity crisis because his school has not one but THREE different mascots, I can understand why you might feel the no mascot route is the best one.

I think that’s a good idea. I’d be willing to bet that simply being Ole Miss would go over well with the students, Alumni, et al. Over time at least. However, the admin. and associated student body need not cram it down the throats of everyone else. That’s where the vehement opposition comes in as seen in previous attempts.

A slow phase out of the last on-field mascot would have had much less attention and wouldn’t have had as much opposition. We don’t need a mascot jumping around on the sidelines. I think it’s fair to say that winning Football games is a higher priority than having someone in a stuffed suit on the field. That will bring Ole Miss the positive national media attention it deserves, and will help the future of all of our athletic programs. I trust most fans, alumni, and students would agree.

Not having a mascot isn’t an option. While I recognize it may not be your motivation, many people who espouse the “why do we need a mascot?” position want a blank slate so that Colonel Rebel can continue to be the (unofficial) mascot. In practice having no mascot will be the equivalent of continuing Colonel Rebel since the only way to replace his imagery is to have an alternative.

At its core all of the mascot activity is born of the school leadership’s realization that the best interests of OM call for moving away from Confederate imagery. That realization requires having a new symbol. Your suggestion that there be no mascot creates the impression that Ole Miss can have a Confederate mascot or no mascot—and nothing in between. Such a viewpoint does nothing but bolster the widespread sentiment that the school is anachronistically mired in a lost time.

From here you can script how it plays out. All of the people who lobbied to keep Col Reb (or who quietly hoped he would return) are sitting back waiting to attack whatever the mascot decision will be. For years afterward the Col Reb faithful will defiantly emblazon him on their cars and clothes, and droves will wear the “Col Reb is my mascot” sticker in the Grove and the stadium. But then, quietly at first, and then in larger numbers, the new mascot will take root.

Such is how change has often come to a school that has finally realized that as great as it is, it can be more. Kudos to it for looking ahead to the future, and not backwards to the past.

I don’t think it’s so much the mascot issue that is in question Sparafucile.  It’s the fact that people are starting to realize it has nothing to do with the symbols.  It’s that the University preaches diversity and inclusion and is all about celebrating multi-culturalism but consistently takes the very culture that is so deeply intertwined with it and a majority of the alumni and kicks it in the face time after time after time.  Over the years, the guilty liberals in academia have come to determine that everyone’s culture should be taught and celebrated but that of those with Confederate ancestry.  No matter your interpretation of the causes of the War Between the States, lest we forget, an entire class of students left Ole Miss(see University Greys, Company A, 11th Mississippi Infantry) to fight and die for a cause they believed in when they didn’t have to fight.  And a good majority of Mississippians who came out of the University have confederate ancestry.  I’m sorry that you feel this is not a heritage to be proud of because it doesn’t make you feel all warm and fuzzy.  But again, the issue is not the mascot...or the flag...or Dixie...or anything else the University may have removed or will assuredly remove in the future to make itself feel better.  I think folks are just tired of the University and people like you screaming about celebrating multiculturalism and then pointing their fingers in their faces and saying your culture, or at least our interpretation of your culture, doesn’t belong anymore because it might hurt peoples’ feelings.  What about their feelings?  Why is it that liberals are completely tolerant of everyone...except anyone who disagrees with them?  Shame on you and your elitist arrogance for deciding whose culture and whose feelings matter and whose do not.  I say Kudos to the people who stand up and say that Confederate heritage is a heritage of honor and defend that reputation passionately against people like you.  Those kids (University of Mississippi students) marched to their eventual death through the freezing cold barefooted and starving to fight for their country.  They gave everything for what they believed in.  What have ever you done?

Chrisman,

I don’t think you intended to, but you’re making my point. As you said at the end of your comment, people like you want Ole Miss to be symbolic of Confederate soldiers “march[ing] to their eventual death through the freezing cold barefooted and starving to fight for their country.” I submit to you that it is emphatically NOT in Ole Miss’s interests to be that symbol. And the tide that began with removing the flag and then Colonel Rebel shows that fortunately I’m not alone.

It is clear that you feel proud of the University Greys and have no problem with Ole Miss’s longstanding identification with Old South symbols. While I don’t share your Confederate sentiments, I fervently believe in your right to have them. But what you and people who believe as you do can’t or refuse to accept is that in 2010, a University with 20% African American enrollment in a state that is one-third African-American, seeking to cement itself as the state’s flagship university and to compete with larger, wealthier peers can no longer afford to embrace symbols that may make people like you pleased as punch, but that alienate large segments of the state and the region.

You are free to feel proud of your Confederate heritage. What is slowly happening at Ole Miss, however, is that it is no longer allowing itself to be the vehicle for that nostalgia. People like you are going to have to fly flags at your house, go to civil war reenactments, give money to Beauvoir or join organizations that share your beliefs. The state endured riots and national guardsmen in Oxford to get it through the thick skulls of people like you that Ole Miss doesn’t belong to just you. It also belongs to the state that supports it and the many different kinds of students who choose to attend it. It also belongs to people who are ecstatic that the South lost the war. It also belongs to people who don’t tear up when they hear Dixie.

I hate that you think i’m hostile to your views. I love that this country allows everyone to think however they choose. I’m not being intolerant of your beliefs. I’m simply saying that as a public university seeking to broaden its appeal Ole Miss should no longer be hostage to them. I simply want Ole Miss to have a mascot that the entire Ole Miss family can feel represents them. You apparently view that family as a lot smaller than I do.

And I know you didn’t intend to, but again...YOU make my point.  I have no problem with the University celebrating everyone’s heritage...and am all for it.  I don’t want Ole Miss to be the University of the Confederacy, but why can’t folks celebrate the Confederate heritage of Ole Miss along with the heritage of other groups?  You are worried about the feelings of “african-americans.” Maybe it hurts my feelings that my heritage and those like me is so grossly misinterpreted?  But again, you bleed arrogance.  You have decided who is allowed to be offended and who isn’t.  You point your finger at me and those like me and call us narrow-minded.  Maybe it just hurts our feelings that your “family” doesn’t include us.  Maybe we are just hurt that folks like you have determined everyone’s culture should be celebrated but ours.  I’m all for TRUE multiculturalism...but apparently I’m the only one in this discussion.

Chrisman,

My point is that no group should be able to use Ole Miss’s mascot to celebrate its heritage. It shouldn’t be a Buddha or the star of David or a swastika or Malcolm X or a Confederate colonel or anything divisive. Why can’t Ole Miss be like its peer institutions and have something neutral that everyone can love?

I’m not advocating that you be forced to celebrate anyone’s heritage. Im advocating that you not be allowed to celebrate your heritage as the symbol of a public university in this state. The place for you to celebrate that is on the bookshelves or walls of your home or on your car bumper or with your friends. If I were advocating something anti-Confederate or pro-some other group of people your post would make sense. I’m not. I would just like to go to an Ole Miss game and see what I see in Baton Rouge and Starkville and everywhere else—a diverse group of people who, despite their ethnic, political and socio-economic differences, are united behind a university and a team that plays no favorites in its imagery.

If, as you say, you’re for “TRUE multiculturalism,” you should’ve been first in line to call for removal of the Confederate colonel mascot and to find something that the entire Ole Miss community could embrace.” If on the other hand, you believe true multiculturalism would allow you to force black Ole Miss students to attend a university with a Confederate mascot it’s clear you have absolutely no idea what multiculturalism means.

It baffles me how every other SEC school in the former Confederacy is intelligent enough/aware enough/open-minded enough or just pragmatic enough to have bulldogs or tigers or gators—symbols that hold no negative historical imagery—but many people in this state are having nervous breakdowns over efforts to send Col Reb to pasture.

Exactly…