Ole Miss Rebels
Encyclopedia
University of Mississippi
University of Mississippi
The University of Mississippi, also known as Ole Miss, is a public, coeducational research university located in Oxford, Mississippi. Founded in 1844, the school is composed of the main campus in Oxford, four branch campuses located in Booneville, Grenada, Tupelo, and Southaven as well as the...

 sports
College athletics
College athletics refers primarily to sports and athletic competition organized and funded by institutions of tertiary education . In the United States, college athletics is a two-tiered system. The first tier includes the sports that are sanctioned by one of the collegiate sport governing bodies...

 teams, originally known as the "Mississippi Flood" , were re-named the Rebels in 1936 and compete in the twelve-member Southeastern Conference
Southeastern Conference
The Southeastern Conference is an American college athletic conference that operates in the southeastern part of the United States. It is headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama...

 of the NCAA
National Collegiate Athletic Association
The National Collegiate Athletic Association is a semi-voluntary association of 1,281 institutions, conferences, organizations and individuals that organizes the athletic programs of many colleges and universities in the United States...

's Division I. The school's colors are cardinal red (PMS
Pantone
Pantone Inc. is a corporation headquartered in Carlstadt, New Jersey, USA. The company is best known for its Pantone Matching System , a proprietary color space...

 186) and navy blue (PMS 281), purposely chosen to mirror the school colors of Harvard and Yale
YALE
RapidMiner, formerly YALE , is an environment for machine learning, data mining, text mining, predictive analytics, and business analytics. It is used for research, education, training, rapid prototyping, application development, and industrial applications...

, respectively. With a long history in intercollegiate athletics (Ole Miss began football in 1890), the university competes in 18 men's and women's sports. Student-athletes, 630 in all, received all-conference academic honors from 1995–2004.

Although a campus committee has proposed the Rebel Black Bear as an on-field mascot for sporting events to replace Colonel Reb
Colonel Reb
Colonel Reb is the former sporting mascot of Ole Miss Rebels, the collegiate athletic teams of the University of Mississippi . Designed in the 1930s, the figure served as the teams' official or near-official mascot from 1979 until 2003...

, the teams will retain the name Rebels.

Women's basketball

The Ole Miss Lady Rebels basketball program began in 1974, and have been a fixture in post-season tournaments since that time. The Lady Rebels have appeared in the NCAA Women's Division I Basketball Championship
NCAA Women's Division I Basketball Championship
The NCAA Women's Division I Championship is an annual college basketball tournament for women. Held each April, the Women's Championship was inaugurated in the 1981–82 season...

 tournament seventeen times, including the inaugural 1982 tournament; they also appeared in the tournament in 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2004, 2005, and 2007. They have reached the Sweet Sixteen eight times and the Elite Eight five times (1985, 1986, 1989, 1992, and 2007). They have also appeared in the Women's National Invitation Tournament
Women's National Invitation Tournament
The Women's National Invitation Tournament , formerly the National Women's Invitation Tournament, is a college basketball tournament with a preseason and postseason version played every year...

 in 1999, 2001, and 2006. Entering the 2008 season, the program has an all-time win-loss record of 686-353, for a 66% average.

The 1992 team won the SEC with an 11-0 conference record, and finished the season with a final record of 29-3, the most wins in team history.

The program has produced such outstanding players as sisters Peggie Gillom, who still holds the school records for scoring and rebounding, and Jennifer Gillom
Jennifer Gillom
Jennifer "Grandmama" Gillom is a former WNBA basketball player who played for the Phoenix Mercury from 1997 to 2002...

, an Olympic medalist, Kodak All-American, and SEC Female Athlete of the Year.

Perhaps the most decorated player in Lady Rebel history, guard Armintie Price
Armintie Price
Armintie Ada Price is an American professional basketball player for the Atlanta Dream. Price, who played collegiately at the University of Mississippi, was drafted third overall by the Chicago Sky in the 2007 WNBA Draft...

, joined the program for the 2003-4 season and immediately collected SEC Freshman of the Year honors. In her collegiate career, Price was named to the All-SEC First Team three times and became the first player to be named SEC Defensive Player of the Year twice. With Cheryl Miller she is one of only two players in NCAA history to record 2000 points, 1000 rebounds, 400 assists and 400 steals. As a senior she was a finalist for the Wooden Award and was named to the Kodak All-American Team; she led her team to their first Elite Eight appearance since 1992. Price was drafted third overall in the 2007 WNBA Draft
2007 WNBA Draft
The 2007 WNBA Draft was the league's annual process for determining which teams receive the rights to negotiate with players entering the league....

 and went on to an outstanding first season with the Chicago Sky
Chicago Sky
The Chicago Sky is a professional basketball team based in Rosemont, Illinois, playing in the Eastern Conference in the Women's National Basketball Association . The team was founded before the 2006 WNBA season began. The team is owned by Michael J. Alter and Margaret Stender...

, culminating in Rookie of the Year honors.

Coaching legend and Basketball Hall of Famer Van Chancellor
Van Chancellor
Van Chancellor is the former Louisiana State University women's basketball coach. He was named head coach on April 11, 2007, replacing Pokey Chatman. In 2001, Van Chancellor was elected to the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame, located in Knoxville, Tennessee...

 built his legacy with eighteen years as the Lady Rebels' head coach, where he compiled a record of 439 wins and 154 loses. Chancellor's legacy also includes several players-turned-coaches, including Jennifer Gillom, who helped Chancellor coach the US Senior Women's National Team to the 2002 World Championship; head coach Carol Ross, who returned to her alma mater in 2003; and current associate head coach Peggie Gillom.

Carol Ross resigned as head coach on April 26, 2007. During her four-year tenure, the Lady Rebels' posted 77 wins and 50 loses. She was replaced by assistant coach Renee Ladner.

Lacrosse

The Ole Miss Men's Lacrosse Club team is a member of the Southeast Lacrosse Conference D1 (SELC) in the Men's Collegiate Lacrosse Association (MCLA).

Rivals

Ole Miss' major athletic rivals are with the Mississippi State Bulldogs
Mississippi State Bulldogs
The Mississippi State Bulldogs are the athletic teams of Mississippi State University. They participate in NCAA's Division I in the competitive 12-member Southeastern Conference under the mascot Bulldogs and the school colors of maroon and white...

 (MSU), the LSU Tigers
LSU Tigers
The LSU Tigers are the athletic teams of Louisiana State University. They participate in the NCAA's Division I, in the Southeastern Conference. It fields teams in 14 varsity sports . Its official team nickname is the Fighting Tigers and the school mascot is Mike the Tiger...

 (see Magnolia Bowl), and the Arkansas Razorbacks
Arkansas Razorbacks
The Razorbacks, also known as the Hogs, are the names of college sports teams at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, Arkansas. The term Arkansas Razorbacks properly applies to any of the sports teams at the university. The Razorbacks take their name from the feral pig of the same name...

. (see Arkansas – Ole Miss rivalry)

In football, Ole Miss and MSU close each season with the Egg Bowl
Egg Bowl
The Battle for the Golden Egg, also known as the Egg Bowl, is an American college football rivalry game between played annually by the Mississippi State Bulldogs football team of Mississippi State University and the Ole Miss Rebels football team of the University of Mississippi . The rivalry is...

, with the victor receiving possession of the Golden Egg Trophy. Ole Miss leads the series 60–41–6.
In basketball, MSU leads the series 138–105 and has won 16 of the last 20 and 20 of the last 25.

In baseball, according to Ole Miss records, Mississippi State now leads the series 231–196–5 (239–195–5 according to MSU records). However, as recently as 1978, Ole Miss led the series by some six games before Mississippi State became a leader both in the SEC and nationally in baseball. Since 1978, Ole Miss is 52–90 against MSU.

LSU has a 55–39–4 advantage in the all-time football series with Ole Miss.

Songs and cheers

Songs

The school's fight song is "Forward Rebels." It is played by the Ole Miss "The Pride of the South
The Pride of the South
The Pride of the South is the name of the marching band at The University of Mississippi in Oxford, Mississippi. The full band plays at all Ole Miss home football games, and a smaller pep band is sent to most away games...

" marching band at official university sporting events.

The song "Dixie
Dixie (song)
Countless lyrical variants of "Dixie" exist, but the version attributed to Dan Emmett and its variations are the most popular. Emmett's lyrics as they were originally intended reflect the mood of the United States in the late 1850s toward growing abolitionist sentiment. The song presented the point...

" is an un-official fight song still popular with a large number of fans and alumni. It is often used to incite the passionate fans to their feet in a defensive stand or celebration of a major play.

A modification of the Elvis Presley song An American Trilogy, now known as From Dixie with Love or Slow Dixie, was also played during football games, both home and away. The song was first played during the half-time performance at the Ole Miss/LSU game of 1984 in Tiger Stadium. Upon its completion, the band received a standing ovation from 70,000+ on hand that day. It soon became a staple of the band for many years. During Ole Miss's winning streak of 2003, students and fans alike began chanting "The South will rise again" in place of "His truth is marching on" at the end of the song. The chant remained a staple for the next several years. In 2009, with Ole Miss in the national spotlight for football success, political pressure mounted to do away with the chant. The Student Body Government even proposed to call for the chant to be changed to "To Hell with LSU". When, unsurprisingly, that idea failed to get traction, the University asked the band to quit playing the song.

A modification of "Dixie" called "Dixie Fanfare" is also played by the band.

Cheers

The school cheer is entitled Hotty Toddy:

Are you ready?

Hell, yes! Damn Right!

Hotty Toddy, Gosh almighty

Who the hell are we, Hey!

Flim Flam, Bim Bam

OLE MISS BY DAMN!

External links

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