Jock Jams-Are You Kidding Me??

I have been meaning to write this for a while, but have not gotten around to it. I want to express my opinion on how bad the Ole Miss marketing/game atmosphere/environment is. Any athletic event that I go to it seems that those involved in what I will call "Game Atmosphere" are not on the same page or are either about ten years out of date. There is way to much just sitting around while some awful production plays on the jumbotron that is supposed, key word supposed, to fire up the fans and the players. If this fires up one player or fan then they have been in a comma for 15 years.

Lets take for instance the moment before the basketball team runs out onto the court. Our people show some footage that I could have made on my computer and in the background play "Jesus Walks" by Kanye West("George Bush hates black people"). I mean this is the most boring production we could play, I would much rather hear the RebelReboundSound than watch this production. There is dead silence for a minute while people watch the jumbotron. I mean how/when/why is "Jesus Walks" supposed to fire people up?

Lets move on to the pregame warm-ups. I mean let's be serious we are still playing Jock Jams-"Let's Get Ready To Rumble". I can remember sitting at the scorers table at Pillow Academy in 1997 and playing me personally playing this as the Lady Mustang's called out their starting line ups. Why can we not do better than this? This is ten-fifteen years outdated. You go to any other SEC arena and their fans are going nuts with the music being played or the lights being flashed and the players love it. Instead once again we are forced to watch some awful production on the jumbotron once again and everyone feels uncomfortable because their is dead silence and they know it should not be. Yet know "Spirit Crew or Rebel Crew" or whatever they are called are doing anything about it. This is a time when the team is supposed to be fired up and ready to play and vibe off the fans emotion. Not at Ole Miss.

I will now move on to during the game. How many time outs are we going to spend throwing out t-shirts. This is all we do to get our fans pumped up, is throw or shoot t-shirts in the stands. Or we play music from the Blues Brothers every other time out. During last Saturday game our band played maybe twice during a time out in the first half. If you can not understand by now, I am furious with what is going on. The band is there for a reason as are the cheerleaders, so why do we not use them.

Half time is another story. I remember the days when we had awesome half time shows. I do not know if any of you remember this, but one game we had the Budweiser DareDevils. That was by far the coolest thing the Ole Miss marketing department has ever done. Now, these days Derrick Horne arranges some one girl dance performance that we have that is completely embarrassing.

Many of you know that I am a Pete Boone supporter. I have supported alot of the decisions he has made not necessarily all of them, but think he has the right interest in mind. However at this point I am going out on a limb and calling for a change of whomever is in charge of our marketing/game strategy. I have had enough of "The Rebel Express" "The O Zone" and any other cheesy slogan that does not stick. If we are going to start moving in the right direction, it is time for a change in this side of U.M.A.A.