The Ole Miss Rebel Mascot Is A Black Bear. Resume Normal Business.

America, stop holding your breath: the Ole Miss mascot has been chosen, and he will be Rebel the Black Bear.

If you don’t understand the association, that is pardonable. Faulkner’s “The Bear” centers on a Black Bear, and it was in Mississippi that Teddy Roosevelt spared the life of a black bear that became the model for the original Teddy Bear. The bear won the competition over The Landshark and Hotty Toddy, the other two formal candidates, and the informal challenge of Admiral Ackbar, the dark horse candidate who really should give the bear its rightful name: Admiral Ackbear.

Ole Miss says the mascot “appeals to children,” but oh, Ole Miss, that’s just what they want you to think. Don’t fall for their wiles! It’s just another chapter in the centuries-long PR campaign by the Bear Lobby to make bears seem friendly in order to lure children closer and then eat them. Somewhere in the galaxy, far far away, a giant shrimp with legs in an all white suit weeps softly for what might have been, and says in a low voice: “Ole Miss, it’s...oh, nevermind.”