My roomate Emily wrote this article with a little help from
yours truly.Just wanted to share! It's pretty awesome! Hotty Toddy!
EmBEARassment to Ole Miss
Article Thu, 10/14/2010 - 21:49 By Emily Gasson
Now, after eight months of voting and waiting and voting and waiting some more, we are the Ole Miss Rebel Black Bears (like that even makes sense).
Did we really even have a fair chance to begin with? At the beginning of the entire process of selecting an on field mascot, we were asked one question: Do you want to have any student input in the selection of a new Ole Miss mascot?
However, we were not asked the most important question: Do we really even want a on-field mascot? For most of the Ole Miss family, there was an easy question to answer...NO!
This was all a plot created by Chancellor Dan Jones and his little puppet Athletics Director Pete Boone.
They have said how impressed they are by the amount of student support and involvement in this process. How was the majority of our Ole Miss family represented in the selection committee? These were students that were handpicked by the chancellor because they would provide him with the results he wanted.
One of my dear friends said that if she was not an Ole Miss student, she would make fun of our University for being the teddy bears.
Honestly, how many of us have really seen a black bear roaming around Mississippi? For those of us who have lived in this fine state our entire lives, we can testify that the only time we have ever seen a bear has been at the zoo. How is there a connection to Mississippi and our University?
I know that people have said that the connection is through William Faulkner’s story about a bear and President Roosevelt’s hunting trip to Mississippi where he refused to shoot a bear. How is this relevant?
Honestly, if we are going to choose some random animal to represent our school, why not choose a squirrel? We have more than enough on campus. They are really friendly and children love chasing them in the Grove on game day. Why was this not a choice?
If we are really going to have a Black Bear as our mascot, we sure as hell better have a real bear on the field. This would be the only saving grace from this total catastrophe. I want to at least be able to take a picture with a real Black Bear cub like LSU does with a tiger.
Not only are Ole Miss fan’s making fun of our new mascot, but so will the rest of the country.
Some of you may have heard of that farm school roughly two hours away from Ole Miss.
I don’t even want to know what these cow bell ringers are going to say. If you have a Facebook, you will be able to see the backlash of this ridiculous decision.
People are probably wondering who would want to be the person in the bear outfit on game days knowing how badly they are going to be booed. Well I have a really good suggestion. Dan Jones needs to volunteer to be the person in the bear costume to see just how “supportive” the Ole Miss family really is.
I can only imagine the posters that will be made for the game on Saturday. “Beat the stuffing out of those teddy bears.” Do we really need any more embarrassment?
I also want to know about the thousands of Ole Miss fans who have supported a petition for Colonel Reb? Why was this not brought up in the mascot decision? I was one of the 3,500 students who signed this petition, and I am very offended that my voice was not really given a chance to be heard.
Chancellor Jones I want know what are you going to do about all of these students who are not being heard? Do you even care or do we not matter?
Does our administration really believe that people are going to embrace and accept this decision with open arms? Who is really going to purchase Ole Miss merchandise with a bear on it? I personally will not every purchase anything with a bear on it, so I am wondering, who will?
What else is going to be taken away from us? When are Ole Miss fans going to revolt against this administration? I am fed up with all of our so called traditions being taken away from us. I am now embarrassed to say that I am an Ole Miss fan and student.
Well Rebel fans, we are now the Ole Miss Rebel Black Bears, so get your grrrs ready and learn to have a thick skin because we are going to be ridiculed for years and years to come.
What's your opinion on this article? I thought she did a pretty good job of stating the majority of the students stance! :)
.JPG)
