The Rebel Black Bear is the new on-field mascot for the University of Mississippi’s sports teams.
The Ole Miss Mascot Selection Committee announced today that 62 percent of those voting picked the Rebel Black Bear, 56 percent picked the Rebel Land Shark, and 42 percent voted for Hotty Toddy, whatever that is. (Former President Jimmy Carter evidently did not monitor the polling, with voter participation totaling 160 percent.) An earlier student-led effort to draft Admiral Ackbar, the alien commander of the rebel alliance in Star Wars, was shot down by imperial forces.
In choosing the furry mammal as its mascot, Ole Miss places itself in an elite group of institutions that includes Baylor, Brown, and Cornell Universities; the Universities of California, Maine, and Montana; and thousands of other colleges, high schools, middle schools, and grade schools across the land.
The decision — by Ole Miss students, faculty, staff, alumni, and season-ticket holders — is not exactly the last nail in the coffin of Colonel Reb, the antebellum mascot that was retired seven years ago. When the Jackson, Miss., Clarion-Ledger announced the tally today on its Web site, it didn’t take long for the brickbats to start flying in.
“A freaking teddy bear? This is EMBARASSING!! [sic]” said one commenter. Another vowed to stop attending games or giving money to the university.
But Charles Clark, president of the university’s Alumni Association, expressed gratitude to his fellow alums and to the student-led Mascot Selection Committee for bringing the process to a conclusion.
“While we might not all agree with the committee’s selection, I am confident that we will come together and continue to strongly support the Ole Miss Rebels,” Mr. Clark said in the mascot announcement. “I know that my love of Ole Miss is as strong as ever, and that I will be in Tuscaloosa on Saturday night cheering loudly for our Rebels,” which will continue to be the sports teams’ nickname.
The committee considered more than 1,000 mascot suggestions and enlisted the help of 33 focus groups before narrowing the field to 11 semifinalists. An initial round of balloting further winnowed the field to three finalists, and more than 13,300 people participated in the final vote, with 87 percent supporting one of the three finalists.
The announcement neglected to mention which mascots the other 13 percent backed, but we’re betting that Colonel Reb and Admiral Ackbar were in the mix. —Don Troop
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7 Responses to It’s … Another Bear
athibo - October 14, 2010 at 4:12 pm
Would love to know who is in charge of the math and statistics program if 87% of the votes were cast for the 3 finalists whose individual voting percentages totalled 160%. Is this new math at work?
texanpurdue2005 - October 14, 2010 at 4:19 pm
It’s my experience working in public broadcasting that, when a client threatens to stop donating money, they’ve never donated in the first place.
akprof - October 14, 2010 at 4:23 pm
Did anyone notice that the black bear appears to be brown? As an Alaskan, I know that black bears in nature can be almost any color but what’s the point of specifying that it is a black bear ane then coloring it brown. Won’t this merely confuse generations of Mississippi school children? Still I suppose that it is possible that Mississippi colleges can add (and apparently they can’t), it is also possible that they don’t know their colors?
cajunjay - October 14, 2010 at 5:01 pm
Why have a mascot at all? Has anyone seen the NBC show Community? They developed a mascot by committee that was supposedly inoffensive to anyone … it was basically a humanoid “thing” that represented nothing. Here we have life imitating art (if you can call a network TV show art) … maybe the mascot could be a gelding.
missmath - October 14, 2010 at 11:09 pm
Perhaps I can head off a few insults by clarifying that the poll was designed to gauge support for each option. It (obviously) did not call for the typical single vote per person. This approach was especially useful early in the process, where it allowed distinction between neutral and negative reaction to each choice.
dtroop - October 14, 2010 at 11:54 pm
missmath: Can you give an example of how the question was posed in the final round? What you describe sounds like, “Which mascot do you hate the least?”
olemissbiker - October 15, 2010 at 8:22 am
The vote options were: 1) I love this mascot, 2) I like this mascot, 3) I can accept this mascot, and 4) I dislike this mascot. Each voter chose one of those four options for each of the three mascot candidates. I suspect the committee considered any vote except #4 (I dislike) a vote in favor, hence the conclusion that 62% voted for the Bear and turnout was 160 percent.