Colonel Reb radio ad causes controversy

Ever since Colonel Reb was removed from the sidelines of University sporting events in 2003 the students at Ole Miss have been clamoring for a mascot to represent them.

In 2009, then Associated Student Body President Artair Rogers set in motion the idea of a new mascot for the University.

In 2010 13,310 alumni, faculty and students showed enough support for Rebel Black Bear that it was chosen to be the new mascot for Ole Miss. Only 3,366 students voted.

Since choosing Rebel the Black Bear, the University has been in a constant debate, with one side wanting Rebel the Black Bear to remain as the mascot, and the other, better known as the Col. Reb Foundation, pushing for Col. Reb to be brought back.

Recently, another chapter to the struggle has been added when a radio ad promoting the Col. Reb Foundation was pulled from radio stations in Oxford and Grenada. It ran during the broadcast of an Ole Miss Softball game on 101.3 FM.

The Col. Reb Foundation immediately released a press release stating that Ole Miss athletic director Pete Boone had told the radio station manager that if he did not pull the ad from the air then “there was a potential loss of thousands of dollars in advertising from Ole Miss.”

This led to some confusion as it turned out that it was not Pete Boone who had called the radio station but instead Michael Thompson, the Senior Associate Athletics Director for Communications and Marketing.

Howie Morgan, a member of the Colonel Reb Foundation, said that originally the radio station had told him that it was Boone. Even though that did not turn out to be true Morgan said that regardless of who made the call he knows who made the decision.

“It’s like the president didn’t call you, but the vice president called you, OK same thing.” Morgan said. “I mean who does Thompson speak for? Pete Boone.

Kellie Norton, student chairperson of the Col. Reb Foundation, said originally Boone denied that the call even happened.

“Then we got onto him about it and he said it happened but that he got someone else to call,” Norton said.

“So they said that someone from the athletics department called, and we kept pushing and pushing them asking who called and finally they said Michael Thompson.”

Norton said she was confused by the ad being pulled.

“I think it’s ridiculous, I think it’s a bullying effect,” Norton said.  “We have just as much right as every other student organization to have a commercial played, no matter what time of day, no matter what radio station. So obviously he doesn’t like us too much, and I understand that, but what I don’t understand is his reasoning.”

Morgan said that the biggest question he has is why?

“I don’t care who called,” Morgan said. “But why did they care about us running ads on a radio station? Why did they make a demand of us saying that we can’t do this? This is a student run organization, you don’t like their ads? You don’t like their ideas?”

Norton, a junior journalism major, said that while she is upset that the ad was pulled, she is not going to fight to get it back on the air.

“I don’t think it’s worth it to fight with Pete Boone,” Norton said.  

“It’s kind of childish. He couldn’t call himself, he had to get Michael Thompson to call and be the bad guy. So we’re going to move on to bigger and better things.

We’re going to make more radio commercials, maybe they’ll get pulled off, maybe they won’t, we’ll see.”

While Thompson, a 2001 graduate of Ole Miss, admitted that he did call the radio station, he said that the story brought forth by the Col. Reb Foundation has over exaggerated the facts.

“The radio spot was anti-ole miss athletics,” Thompson said.

“It didn’t make a lot of sense for us to broadcast our softball games, and in the commercial breaks run an anti-ole miss athletic commercial.”

Thompson said he was driving home, listening to the Lady Rebels play, when he first heard the commercial. He said he became confused while listening.

He said that he called the radio station and asked them if they thought it was appropriate to advertise that particular commercial in between the innings of an Ole Miss broadcast.

“I was actually kind of conflicted about it because I don’t want to tell someone they can’t raise the money they need to raise, so I just posed the question,” Thompson said.

“I didn’t even ask for an answer right then, I told them to think about it and they could make their own decision.”

Thompson said there is one thing that he wanted to be really clear about.

“I didn’t tell that radio station to do anything,” Thompson said.
“I didn’t because it is not me, it is not my style.”

Thompson said that he was surprised when he saw the press release that the Col. Reb Foundation sent out.

“It uses words like Gestapo and censorship and all this stuff about Pete (Boone), and I was like you’ve got to be kidding me.” Thompson said. “It’s just sensationalism at its best.”

Regardless of who did what, Thompson said that he is just ready for all of this to be over.

“I really would like to just get back to making our fan experience better,” Thompson said. “We’ve got bigger problems to worry about.”

Colonel Reb week underway
April 25 through the 29 is only five days yet at the same time it is also the host of three weeks.

Stress Less week and Diversity Rocks each began this week, and now Colonel Reb week, sponsored by the Col. Reb Foundation.

Norton, who came up with the idea for Col. Reb week, said she took the idea from the Dixie Week, which Ole Miss used to hold back in the 1980’s.

“People used to go out to Sardis and celebrate Ole Miss, eating shrimp and drinking beer,” Norton said.

 “We didn’t want to make it that extreme, but we wanted to celebrate colonel as a whole because students nowadays don’t really have a chance to actually see the colonel, hang out with him, or buy colonel merchandise.”

The week began on Monday with members of the Col. Reb Foundation going to each of the Fraternity and Sorority houses to spread the word about the week.

On Tuesday they asked each of the Col. Reb supporters to come to school wearing their Col. Reb gear.

Col. Reb was supposed to make an appearance in the student section of the Ole Miss baseball game, but the Diamond Rebels meeting with Arkansas Pine-Bluff was canceled due to the weather conditions.

Norton said they wanted to start the week off pretty easy, to let students come back from the Easter break, and get right back into school before they go out with a bang at the end of the week.

Today is the biggest day as far as events go for the week.

At 4 p.m., the Col. Reb Foundation, led by Norton with the many students that they have recruited, will deliver their petitions to Chancellor Dan Jones in the Lyceum. Norton said that they are expecting to deliver over 4,300 petitions to the Chancellor.

“I already went by the Lyceum and warned them,” Norton said.  

“I told them that we are coming by with petitions, because we want to be fair in this process, and I just let them know that there might by media here so warn Dan Jones and let him know we’re coming.”

Later on that night the Col. Reb Foundation will be hosting their first ever Louisiana Black Bear hunt. Students can buy bear hunting licenses for $20 outside of Taylor’s Pub.

The license will get the student into participating bars, which includes The Levee, Frank and Marlees, The Library, The Cellar, and the Round Table, just to name a few, for free.

Once participants have visited each participating bar and received a sticker then you can return to the table outside of Taylor’s and get a free Col. Reb Black Bear hunt t-shirt and have your picture taken with Col. Reb, who will have a fake slain black bear.

“We know that a lot of students in Oxford like to drink and have fun on the Square so we decided one way to really have fun with the colonel is to have a bear hunt.” Norton said.

“We’re expecting a lot of student participation. It’s going to be a really cool event, and a lot of fun.”

On Friday ,Col. Reb will be at Lafayette place at 1 p.m. to host a pre-game party, and he will be around the Square during Double Decker.