(Editor’s Note: This letter was first released on November 12, 2009)
Oxford – Ever since the University of Mississippi Athletic Department chose to become the only SEC school without a mascot in 2002, the Colonel Reb Foundation has picked up the void and escorted a Colonel Reb look-alike into the football, basketball, baseball and other athletic venues at Ole Miss.

But that all changed this past Saturday with a student wearing the mascot uniform being banned from entering an athletic facility for the first time in seven years.
Working with students, alumni and Ole Miss supporters, the Colonel Reb Foundation purchased an exact duplicate from the original manufacturer of the Colonel Reb mascot uniform to allow student members to be “the Colonel” at athletic events. The CRF mascot, officially called “Colonel Too”, enters the games with a student escort with tickets paid for by CRF.

But this past Saturday, November 7, 2009, at the Ole Miss-Northern Arizona football game a student wearing the mascot costume and his escort were banned from entering Vaught-Hemmingway Stadium for the first time since 2003. They were told by armed police and security that the ban on entry was dictated by Public Relations at the University of Mississippi’s Athletic Department.
In 2003 the Associated Student Body voted to keep Colonel Reb as the official mascot of Ole Miss, and a subsequent campus-wide vote showed that 94 percent of students at Ole Miss wanted to keep Colonel Reb as the mascot of Ole Miss.
Colonel Reb Foundation chairman Brian Ferguson said “Chancellor Jones recently stated ‘Some may fear this is the first step toward changing other traditions. It is not.’ I ask him to back these words up with action and let the Colonel back in the stadium with the students and fans of Ole Miss where he belongs.”
A recent article in the campus newspaper, “The Daily Mississippian,” highlighted the fact that the university still reaps large financial rewards from the Colonel Reb logo in its stores on campus, and had a huge increase in sales after the University rescinded an earlier ban on the sale of items with Colonel Reb.

A mascot at Ole Miss since the 1940's and based on a real person at Ole Miss, Colonel Reb has transformed from a character in the student annual to a student cheerleader voted to be on the sidelines during games and to a professional mascot for Ole Miss. In 2003 the University Administration tried to change the mascot despite 94 percent of students voting to keep Colonel Reb on the field. Ole Miss is now the only school in the SEC that does not have a mascot.