Directly from Ole Miss' twitter account; the university has adopted a new mascot...... A shark. Apparently it is derived from when player Tony Fein first did the "shark fin" celebration during their 2008 Cotton Bowl game after a game changing turnover. The celebration is very popular throughout the basketball and football programs. Additionally, the Shark is now not only the mascot, but they have also added three new logos incorporating the shark (which I don't think look too bad) to expand their new brand. I would embed the tweet or a link to their twitter but idk so apologies.
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No sense makes sense...but it's better than the confederate
Here are some of the tweets:
Lol
7 things to know about Tony
1: His name is Tony
Still using #finsuprebels sooooo other than adding a shark what did they change
By introducing an alternate mascot, they can claim to be on the path of completely phasing out a confederate
generalcolonel #metooorsomethinglikethatAssume you intentionally reference the fully part because they got rid of that mascot like 15 years ago.
Yes
Colonel*
dangit, I should have known better. Dad went to and taught at ole miss...
No, ma'am, I'm just a dolphin.
What was wrong with the bear?
I guess they had to wait for Jim McElwain to leave the conference before they could unveil this.
what in the sam hell?
This reminds me of...
If they wanted a bad-ass with fins, they could've gone with Admiral Akbar
Still a rebel, too.
Ah, that's a trap.
This is ridiculous. I used to know an Ole Miss grad who was there when they introduced the Bearcat Mascot. She told me they went to the bearcat to get away from the Confederate Rebel. Ole Miss tried to force the bear mascot on the fans constantly and it just never really worked or was accepted by the fans. I would think they could think of something a little better that might represent the state besides a Shark.
EDIT: 2nd time in a decade thy've changed mascots.
Meh, while the shark might not rep the entire state, it's been used and embraced by the football and basketball teams for a bit now. At least that has some ties, instead of a bear which really doesn't.
That's what comes to my mind, about the furthest thing from a shark fin.
But they are still called the Rebels... This branding is very confused and confusing.
It's stupid as they really aren't changing anything. They need to do a better job or quit pretending.
What they need to do is commit fully to a new mascot and run both for a few decades. They still have a few generations of alumni and fans that will never let them change from rebels. They are trying to get a new alternate mascot to catch on so that when those fans/alumni die off, the new donor base will always remember sharkhead tony being a thing and won't be quite so attached to "rebels" as they quietly take the team name behind the woodshed. It's always going to be awkward and messy at this stage.
You mean like the VPI Fighting Gobblers?
I was thinking along those lines, but obviously that was a gradual transition to a similar mascot instead of trying to eradicate a politically charged one like colonel reb.
So are they saying that they are as good as a shark on land? I feel like that won't end well.
The Stanford Cardinal's mascot is a tree. The USC Trojans' mascot is a horse named traveler. The Alabama Crimson Tide's mascot is an elephant. It doesn't really need to make sense.
Let's not forget the Auburn Tigers have a tiger and an Eagle.
Let's not forget Tennessee has a Davy Crockett "rifleman", and a dog. And an inflatable dog.
I agree it doesn't have to make sense. For example, why is "Mr. Jefferson's University" represented by British Loyalists and referred to a Wahoos?
cool with the shark. also don't care enough to not be cool with the shark. The head of the mascot looks cool at least
As long as I can laugh at Cav Man, everyone else gets a pass
Well this will get some hot takes from their fanbase I imagine
Inspiration for the mascot?