They Only Wanted Their Mascot Back
You heard there was an awful, counterproductive Pro-Confederate rally on the Ole Miss campus on Saturday. They actually were trying to get Colonel Reb back.
On Saturday eight Ole Miss basketball players protested a rally on the university campus requesting former logo “Colonel Reb” to be reinstated as the Rebels’ mascot by kneeling for the national anthem prior to their game against Georgia.
But you didn’t hear that. You heard they were kneeling for a “pro-Confederate rally” held on their campus, as if there was a rally at Ole Miss urging the reinstatement of slavery, or succession, or some other such nonsense.
No, it was an effort to bring Colonel Reb back. Colonel Reb was the Rebels’ old mascot that looked like Colonel Sanders, or possibly the Wake Forest Demon Deacon’s father.
The logo a Shawn Mullooly, formerly the sports editor of the Panama City New Herald, once quipped of “Do you think Ole Miss is at a disadvantage because their mascot needs to use a cane?”
We can discuss their methods of wishing for Colonel Reb to return, brandishing Confederate Flags and the like, but how does it make sense for those offended at the display of the rebel flag to kneel for the American Flag?
The whole thing about kneeling for the national anthem is it is an act that has become tired, both by the kneelers and the people offended by the action of it. When Colin Kaepernick started the act of protest, it made headlines but the only change it will likely accomplish is preventing the Star Spangled Banner from being played prior to games in the future.
Then again, such an event would be the elimination of a major patriotic occurrence in this country, and there are major ramifications that would likely occur in time.
Still, how did a rally designed to restore Ole Miss’ former mascot became associated with a rally for succession? By all accounts, the rally was an example of peaceful protest so many who have defended Kaepernick have championed.
Since mascots like Colonel Reb have become unacceptable, what happens next? Will ETSU suffer because their baseball park is two blocks away from a historical marker erected by the United Daughters of the Confederacy? Will Tennessee be forced to stop playing Rocky Top because of lyrics romanticizing the treasonous murder of federal agents and ask Vols fans to stop wearing checkerboard overalls because it might make some uncomfortable, as evidently Colonel Reb somehow did?
Don’t laugh. It’s next.
Or, we could possibly as a society stop trying to find hate where it doesn’t exist.
Like in a sports logo or mascot.
Marky Billson is a sports talk show host based in the Tri-Cities, TN. Watch him here live from 12–2 p.m. ET weekdays or archived.
