The new University of Mississippi mascot debuts at Blair E. Batson Hospital for Children in Jackson, Miss. in 2011. Harold Gater, The Clarion-Ledger


Ole Miss is "retiring" Rebel the Black Bear mascot in favor of a landshark, which will be ready in time for the 2018 season. A letter from Chancellor Jeffrey Vitter said the decision was unanimous and that everyone is excited about the change, things you know are true because the school announced the change via email at lunchtime on a Friday afternoon (and before a road game).

Three quick things — and, no, I can't believe it's 2017 and we're still writing about Ole Miss mascots, either.

More: Someone in Congress edited landshark's Wikipedia page to include Ole Miss

1. Rebel never stood a chance

Here's all you need to know about the uneasy relationship between Rebel and Ole Miss athletics: in 2014 ESPN's "College GameDay" came to campus for the first time ever, and I asked Athletic Director Ross Bjork would Lee Corso, should he ask, be given the mascot head for the traditional close of show? No, Bjork said — it would be an Ole Miss helmet.

It was an opportunity to extend the brand of Rebel to the widest possible audience and in a completely positive fashion, and Bjork was not interested. This was a fight he inherited from a previous administration, and it's exactly that — to this day there's a significant number of Ole Miss fans who would do anything to have Colonel Reb back. I just don't think Bjork was interested in really wading knee-deep into the fight.

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2. A landshark? Really?

The accepted story is that the landshark happened completely organically by former player Tony Fein and, in the resulting near-decade since, has become this sensation that dominates every Ole Miss sporting event. (Vitter's letter even goes so far as to call it a "Landshark mystique.")

I don't think that's entirely true. I started covering Ole Miss in 2011, when the defense was pitiful, and I don't remember a soul making the landshark symbol. It got popular for a few years afterward as the team got better, and Marshall Henderson helped advance its cause outside of football. But people who are at every Ole Miss home game and who I trust tell me that they now see the landshark used just as much by opponents as a sign of ridicule. It's a thing that people like when Ole Miss is at the Sugar Bowl and that they kind of forget when the Rebels are getting beat by 63 points at Alabama.

Which brings me to my third point:

3. Maybe just not have a mascot

If you want not to have a black bear anymore, cool. That's your choice. Some segment of the student body voted on this, and they said they were done with him. Let the voices be heard.

But why the landshark? Why now? Why not wait just a minute, and see how things go. Maybe be like Indiana, which has no mascot at all.

Maybe say, "There's only about 376 other more pressing situations at Ole Miss between the athletic department and the university, so we're going to deal with all of those first before we get to this."
