New Ole Miss Mascot Options

If you've been paying attention to Ole Miss in the news over the past few months (yes, we are the school that also just lost to Jacksonville State), you'd know that student government type people and administrators at Ole Miss seem hell bent on giving the University of Mississippi what it really needs.  No, it's not a unified community, massive pledge drive for athletics or anything remotely useful, but a mascot to put on the field so the seven people who give a shit about this will finally shut the hell up.

You may recall the initial list released to the public for further consideration.  If you don't want to click the link (because I know how much work that is), I'll summarize:  The list included multiple forms of Muppets, a lion, a land shark, a bear and some other stuff stolen from other teams.  The list has since been narrowed further to only include a land shark, bear, lion, horse and our very own ambiguously gay duo, Hotty and Toddy.  Of those five, one will become the new Ole Miss mascot.  And let me add, mark it down, Hotty and Toddy will win because Ole Miss cannot and will not ever get out of its own damn way.

While some of the finalists are not terrible ideas, they do not represent the true spirit of Ole Miss, or, more importantly, what it's like to be an Ole Miss fan.  As always, I'm here to help the people (note:  not poor people) and have a few ideas to submit for late consideration.  I feel as if these ideas do a better job of capturing, nay, bottling for drink the emotions that so many Ole Miss fans experience when watching their Rebels compete in the field of athletics.

A Yo-Yo

Up, down, left, right, around the world, walking the dog.  These are what happen to your mental state when you watch Ole Miss play in any sport, even something like women's riflery (if you attended one of these shoot-offs or whatever, I'm sure you'd either get shot or see someone else get shot).  Nothing involved with Ole Miss athletics is a smooth or, gasp, an ascending line.  It's one constant state of getting jerked around.  Things going a little too well?  I hope you didn't just get whiplash from being snapped back into the suck.  Is this 31-13 lead going into the fourth quarter a little too conventional?  How about a 49-48 double overtime loss trick?

A Seesaw

Fairly self-explanatory. One minute your up, the next your down. Up, down, up, down, up, down. Try that out 11 or 12 Saturdays in the Fall for the past 20 years. Nausea, disgust and a sore ass are the common side effects. And notice that the Ole Miss seesaw has no handles, MAKING IT EVEN MORE DANGEROUS.

The Oxygen Cycle

Almost any cycle would work here, but I found this depiction both color-friendly and incredibly inexpensively done, which is right in Ole Miss' wheelhouse. Essentially, what happens with Ole Miss teams is that they build up your hope, through either preseason hype, the other team sucking heading into the game or strong enough play that it leads you to believe they can pull off an upset. Then, of course, those hopes are crushed like Eastern European revolts during Soviet dominance. So you swear them off, saying you'll watch but no longer be as emotionally invested as you once were. But nature keeps cranking, and you'll be pulled back in emotionally and slammed once again with more disappointment.  And you'll keep doing it as long as oxygen flows through your lungs.

Venus Flytrap

"Hey, this looks like a pretty safe place to be. Ooooh, look how enjoyable it looks in there. This looks fun, we should definitely stop here."

DEAD.

Stockholm Syndrome

"At first, I hated you, but the way you criminally abuse my emotions, I gotta say, I LIKE IT. Remember how you lost to a I-AA team in double overtime? Can you please do that again? Why, of course I'll beg! Please, please, please, please, please do it again! Ooooohhhhh. That was good. Wait, where are you going? DON'T LEAVE ME HERE! I NEED YOU, DAMMIT!"

This is the only rational explanation as to why we Ole Miss fans keep coming back. Any person not held captive by this emotional abuser can see we're all idiots for sticking around. But Ole Miss has firmly sunk its claws into something buried in my DNA and I am powerless to fight it. It's Wednesday and I already miss it so damn much. Do I want to watch this team play football anytime soon? A thousand times NO, but only .5% of me realizes that. The other 99.5% recognizes that I better damn well find out what channel ESPN Classic is for the Tulane game. And screw you, ESPN for starting our game on Classic then switching it to ESPN2 after the Tennessee/Oregon game is over. How dare you make me work to watch television.

And yes, the physical mascot would be a blob with the Wikipedia page information printed on it.