Colonel Reb is the mascot of Ole Miss Rebels, college athletic team at Mississippi University ("Ole Miss") in Oxford, Mississippi. Designed in 1936, Colonel served as the official side mascot of the team from 1979 to 2003. The university replaced it in 2010 with a new mascot on the field, Black Bear.
Video Colonel Reb
Origin
There are several theories about who originally designed the Colonel Reb. One theory proposes that Billy Hix, the art editor for the 1936-1937 yearbook Ole Miss in which the Colonel first appeared, created the image as an illustration for the new athletic sobriquet of the university. Another theory postulates that the group of students responsible for publishing the humor magazine The Rebel designed the Colonel, because it is known as the "Rebel Club" - founded in 1937 shortly after the University adopted the name "Rebels" and displayed in the masthead of Colonel illustration magazine identical to that discovered in 1937 yearly. Still others argue that the printing company that publishes Ole Miss is annually responsible for its design.
Mississippi University historian David Sansing has noted that "Blind Jim [Ivy] may be a model for Colonel Rebel," citing the late Miss Everett, Jr., a prominent Mississippi historian and alumnus (BA '32, LLB '34) of the University.
Ivy, who was blinded as a teenager while working with tar at the Tallahatchie Bridge, initially moved to Oxford in 1896 and became a peanut seller. During a baseball game between Ole Miss and the University of Texas, a student told Ivy that Mississippi was badly defeated. At that moment, "Ivy began to cheer the home team with her famous booming sound.This team was strangely inspired by Mr Ivy's enthusiastic cheers, and won the game with conviction." Since then, "Blind Jim" has been a university campus fixture for the next sixty years and is considered one of the most passionate fans of the sports team, known to be proud to tell others that he "never saw Ole Miss lose."
Concrete evidence has not been found, to support the conclusion that Ivy is the basis for the Colonel Reb design.
Ivy was very much a part of the university scene when the school newspaper editor, The Mississippian, proposed a contest in April 1936 to produce a new nickname for Ole Miss's athletic team. Prior to this, the team had been summoned by various names-Red and Blue, Oxfords, the Mighty Mississippians, South, Crimson and Blue-and the most recent and most popular until 1936, the Flood. The Mississippian received many entries and then placed several names-including Rebels, Raiders, Confederates, Stonewalls, and Ole Miss (without an additional nickname) -in the hands of 21 sports authors. In the end, "Rebels" is a choice of 18 out of 21 sports authors, a nickname that refers to University Grays. After five months of contests and polls, the university's athletics committee officially approved the name, and its sports team has been known as Rebel ever since.
The Colonel's appearance has been modified several times since the early years. The 1941-1942 Ole Miss shows the depiction of Colonel Reb that looks much more like the famous image used to this day. The earliest and most widely known version of the "modern" Colonel, however, appeared in 1946-1947 Ole Miss , graced the cover in full color and more detail. The owner of Ole Miss's bookshop, Carl Coers and the famous New Orleans cartoonist, John Churchill Chase may have also helped revise and modify the Colonel's pictures during those early years. The California company, Angelus Pacific, also claims that he designed the Colonel; During this era, former Disney artist Art C. Evans illustrated dozens of college mascots that became very popular in America and are still widely known today.
Maps Colonel Reb
Colonel Reb on Campus
Honorary Title
In 1940, Ole Miss students began choosing "Colonel Rebel" as the highest honor position for male students on campus (not to be confused with the mascot). This title was previously called "The King of Mardi Gras," but the name was changed by the Executive Board of the Student Executive Board in the fall of 1939. This distinction was made in addition to the female equation ("Miss Ole Miss"), which has been given to female students on campus for over a decade. Several honorable Ole Miss alumni have been selected for one of these two positions, including former Mississippi University Advisor Robert Khayat. In 1975, former National Football League standout Ben Williams became the first black student to be elected "Colonel Reb." "Gentle Ben", as he is known by many in the Ole Miss community, is also the first black footballer in Ole Miss. In 1989, female star bassist Ole Miss Kimsey O'Neal became the first black student to earn the title "Miss Ole Miss." One year later, in 1990, Roy Lee "Chucky" Mullins, a Rebel athlete who suffered a devastating football injury in 1989 that paralyzed him, was elected "Colonel Reb" by the student body.
In 2013, the Associated Student Body at the University officially changed the name of this honorary title from "Colonel Reb" to "Mr. Ole Miss."
Mascot
Like the trends at many American colleges and universities during the 1970s, the university adopted a costume mascot, based on the popular "Colonel Rebel" design. Thus, in 1979, Colonel Reb advanced from his 40-year history on paper to a caricature that lives on the field. The role was filled by male cheerleaders, and the character was first called "Johnny Reb." Throughout the early 1980s, Ole Miss's cheerleading team gained wide recognition as one of the "top forces" in the country: Colonel named "Best Mascot in S.E.C." in his first year, and he also helped lead the Rebels into third place and first place by the National Cheerleading Association ("NCA") and Universal Cheerleading Association ("UCA"), respectively, among the 99 competing universities. The Colonel was also on hand to welcome former President Gerald Ford when he visited the University of Mississippi in 1981.
For a brief period during the early 1980s, the Colonel also joined the Rebel cheerleading squad members en route to several NBA games to perform at a part-time show, where the group would use mini-trampolines and perform flashy, acrobatic slams and other stunts basketball. (This group, which featured Colonel Reb in its initial appearance, was originally known as "Dixie Daredevils," but was eventually renamed "Bud Light Daredevils" after getting a sponsorship from Budweiser.)
The Colonel will continue to revolve in strong performances throughout the 1980s: in 1986, he won the "SEC Mascot of the Year" award and was named Runner-Up for "National Mascot of the Year" (finishing just behind Cocky of the South Carolina ) Gamecocks). During the same year, he was also honored as a "National Mascot Fund Fan" for fundraising efforts for children's diabetes research and charity performance for the United Way.
When Colonel Reb was released by the university in 2003, he still remains present in public awareness in merchandise, memorabilia, and even as an unofficial mascot.
Search mascots
In 2003, a government concerned about some people in the public who considered the relationship between the character and the Southern Liberated Colonel from the sidelines at the Ole Miss sports event as an official mascot on the ground, even though he was allowed in prison and the function of unofficial university others. Contests are held where fans are invited to design a replacement. The athletic department selects two finalists, Rebel Bruiser and Rowdy Rebel, and encourages fans to choose their favorites. Unlimited fan responses, as well as ridicule from rival school fans, prompted the government to cancel the polls.
In 2010, the University announced it would form a student committee to select a new mascot for the school team. A website was later established by the committee in an effort to promote transparency during the process. After months of analyzing responses and feedback, including the final poll, the committee finally chose Black Bear as the new mascot on the field and named it "Rebels".
Nonetheless, the Colonel Reb remains very prevalent in public consciousness. The Colonel Reb Foundation, a student group founded to support the return of the Colonel Reb as a university mascot, currently sponsors the unofficial appearance of the mascot at The Grove on match day. The University has reclassified the Colonel Reb trademark as a history and still retains ownership of the trademark.
References
External links
- ColonelReb.org, a site dedicated to the resurrection of Colonel Reb
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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