The Greatest Mascot That Never Was

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by John Lamm

Mascots are very important to college football teams. They need to be loud, energetic, and be able to pump up both the fans and increase momentum for the team on the field. Not having a mascot on the field can be a big letdown for students and alumni. For Ole Miss, they spent 7 years without a mascot on the field after their longtime mascot Colonel Reb was taken off of the field in 2003, after years of controversy.
However, this article is not about Colonel Reb or Ole Miss’s current mascot. This article is about the greatest almost mascot of all time, the heroic Star Wars Legend Admiral Ackbar.

For those of you who do not know who Admiral Ackbar is, he was the “squid-like alien” leader of the Rebel Alliance, who famously said “It’s a Trap” as he led the attack on the second Death Star in Return of the Jedi.

In 2010, after 7 years of not having a mascot on the field, Ole Miss decided it was time to find a new mascot for the athletic program. Mississippi students Matthew Henry, Tyler Craft, Joseph Katool, and Ben McMurtray decided to start a campaign for Admiral Ackbar to be the new mascot. Their campaign was designed to be controversial. While thinking it would be funny to push for a Star Wars character to be a mascot, knowing people would “either love it or hate it”.

Image from Ole Miss Rebel

They may have underestimated the love of Star Wars in the Oxford, Mississippi community. Their idea actually got to the hearts of many students who began to really push the idea of Admiral Ackbar as mascot and leader of the Ole Miss community.

Posters and signs were made; t-shirts were too. Also, Facebook and Twitter were used by students to push the idea, causing the website for Admiral Ackbar as mascot to hit 1.5 million hits. Fans love their Star Wars heroes, and it showed when a fan, wearing a shirt with Admiral Ackbar’s squid head on it, held up a sign outside the stadium that said “GO TO HOTH, LSU” and had Admiral Ackbar “taking out an LSU tiger.” This truly would have been an amazing mascot for the team.

Image from Ole Miss Rebel

Unfortunately, with all the love and support Admiral Ackbar got, many people felt very offended by the idea, thinking that it was embarrassing to the University and was a stupid joke and a “slap in the face” to the athletic program. This led to Admiral Ackbar not being selected as the new mascot, and eventually a black bear was selected to be the new mascot to be on the football field.

A bear is a great mascot, but it is nothing unique. Baylor’s mascot is a bear, so is UCLA’s and California’s, among several others. Having Admiral Ackbar as a mascot would have been truly a sight that no one would forget. Fans in the stands could wear Admiral Ackbar heads over their faces in the student section. Imagine the home field advantage this would give Ole Miss’s football team. Think about all the teams coming into Oxford, looking around Vaught-Hemingway Stadium, and seeing a bunch of “squid-like alien” heads in the crowd.

Every SEC coach would circle that game on their calendars. They would think “great, we gotta go back down and play that team that’s obsessed with Squid-Alien hybrids”. Ole Miss truly could have had something great. Not to mention all the Star Wars lovers that are geniuses who would begin to consider Ole Miss over Harvard and MIT, solely because of the mascot. But then again, I guess a bear is fine too.

John Lamm is a Wofford Grad, and a lover of mediocre college football teams.