Let’s face it: Southerners love a good laugh. So it’s only natural we get a giggle from Minor League Baseball’s trend of quirky mascots, like sand gnats, biscuits and tin caps.
But what about the Southern mascots that have stood the test of time while inspiring football fans from around the Deep South to proudly cheer (and sometimes jeer) their way into the end zone? Enjoy these quips of history outlining our favorite unconventional mascots and the cultural images and anecdotes they’ve been conjuring up for decades.
Even though “Statesmen” is the mascot you might find on official paperwork buried somewhere in the rubble of academia, Delta State University has long been known for its unofficial mascot: the Fighting Okra.
But how does a scrappy seed pod come to represent fierceness in sports battle? Throughout the years, stories of its origin have continued to propagate. Some say it was born as an inside joke from the student body that didn’t believe “Statesmen” was intimidating. Or there’s the story that includes a stubborn okra plant on the baseball diamond.
According to The Delta Statement, after an inevitable fight broke out at the school’s basketball game with rival Mississippi College in 1985, refs promptly threw both teams’ mascots out of the game and enacted a temporary ban on the “Statesmen.”
Student-athletes gathered after the game to determine a new mascot for proceeding games, with an understanding it had to be “mean and green.” After a few ideas were tossed around, baseball pitcher Bob Black suggested an okra, because it was “green, fuzzy and tough.”
Others agreed, and when students lined the stands, chants of “Okra! Okra! Okra!” filled the air. After a few years, the mascot took hold with images of an iconic okra wearing boxing gloves and a menacing grin. Finally, an official vote for the “unofficial” mascot was taken and passed in the 1990s.
When the school was named Southern College in 1906, its mascot was simply the “Southerners.” In 1935, however, the Florida Southern College name was adopted and, today, its official colors remain scarlet and white.
The mascot of Florida Southern is, indeed, one of the most feared of Southern reptiles: the water moccasin. Of course, any seasoned Southerner knows this terrifying, venomous snake is also referred to as the cottonmouth.
In case you aren’t intimidated enough, please take note that “mocs” are semi-aquatic, have large triangular heads, a dark line through the eye, elliptical pupils and large jowls due to the venom glands. These vipers also have facial pits that sense heat and are used to detect prey and predators. They can also be found year-round, day or night.
I’d argue this mascot is scarier than okra, albeit much less delicious.
In the early 2000s, as wife of a college football coach, I remember moving to Monticello and being dually dismayed and delighted that my husband was coaching for a team represented by the “Boll Weevils.”
This Southern mascot ties its roots back to a time when the University of Arkansas at Monticello was an agricultural and mechanical college and this insect laid waste to millions of tons of cotton.
Evidently, in 1925 the University president came up with the mascot idea at a pep rally before the school’s first homecoming game. That same year, UAM students fell in love with the name and adopted the boll weevil as the school mascot.
Sure, tigers and bears are scary. But have you ever stepped outside on a warm August night in the South? Bugs are the stuff of nightmares!
Although the university has no officially sanctioned athletic teams, the origins of its mascot began with a competitive game of football.
Considered the first public arts conservatory in the nation, UNCSA commenced in 1965. In the early 1970s, the premier athletic event was an annual touch-football game between a team from UNCSA and one from a Wake Forest University fraternity.
After a naming contest in 1972, the football team mascot became “The Pickles.” The slogan? “Sling ‘Em by the Warts!” This mascot eventually morphed into “The Fighting Pickles” in the spring of 2010 and, today, parades in an Elizabethan cap, piano tutu and a permanent Zorro-like facial configuration with a paintbrush in one hand and clapperboard in the other. Big points for creativity!
(Photo by Chris McDill/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
The Ragin’ Cajun mascot, which went into effect in the 1960s, is not actually a person or an animal of any sort. Instead, it’s considered a feeling that describes the unique culture and lifestyle found in Lafayette, Louisiana, where this University is found. (Quite the zen philosophy for such a spicy mascot!)
In the past, the infamous “Cayenne” mascot has also been found at sporting events. Around 2000, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette wanted to add a little extra something by incorporating an additional mascot in the form of a moderately hot chili pepper. As of late, however, “Cayenne” has been part of a branding battle (and disappeared mysteriously from sporting events in the 2010s). Although the school’s website has promised a detailed mascot history of the school as forthcoming, you’ll find that the apostrophe in the Ragin’ Cajuns logo is a cayenne pepper!
Admittedly, this list reads like a typical summer afternoon in the South: bugs, snakes and fresh-picked garden staples with a little spice. But the football mascot in the South is much more than a tradition — it’s a lifestyle. And kudos to the schools willing to embrace the quirks and fundamentals that make them iconic to its culture!
There are some things Southern dads just seem to care a whole lot about -- even if the rest of us can't figure out why.
Whether it's being a stickler about keeping the thermostat at a certain (usually borderline unbearable) setting, never using a paper plate or always making using a spoon in the jelly jar, sometimes dads have rules that seem a little odd to everyone but them.
With that in mind, we decided to ask our followers on the It's a Southern Thing Facebook page what the strangest thing their dads are sticklers about. We got more than 4,000 replies, and if you're wondering if turning any and every light off before leaving a room was mentioned, you bet your bottom dollar it was.
You can see 28 of the responses below, and you can read all of them on our Facebook page.
"Never fails -- My dad can’t handle wrapping paper on the floor at Christmas. Before any gift-giving begins, he hangs Hefty bags on the doors coming in or out of the gift-giving area. It has gotten so bad he now just hangs bags on door handles around his house or any house he is in anytime family gets together for food or birthdays." -- Jeff Roper
"If you can't change your own tires and oil, you can't have a license." -- Nicole DeVault
"Never turn the dome light on inside a moving car." -- Devon McCormick Watson
"I could never have a big, cool keychain. He was convinced that it would hurt the ignition switch." -- Tena Fritz
"No one was allowed to touch the thermostat but him. I'd have so many blankets on me I couldn't move!" -- Kelly Henderson Grissom
"He wanted to be the first one to look at the newspaper. He enjoyed the crispness of the newly-printed paper. In a family of five, that was a small luxury all to himself." -- Kay Pierce Bradley
"He would rise at 5 a.m. and jog five miles before eating a healthy breakfast. After my mom died and I graduated from college, I started working my first job. I would get out of the shower, get dressed and find a breakfast plate on my dresser -- two perfect over-easy eggs, wheat toast, either bacon or sausage, some fruit, coffee and orange juice. Plus an apple to eat as an afternoon snack at work." -- Carole Williams
"Asking to be excused and thanking my mother for supper or letting her know I enjoyed it (even if I didn’t.) We should instill these manners in our children today." -- Robin Egger
"Being home when the street lights came on." -- Betty Anne Jansen
"My dad always kept track of his gas mileage. Anytime we put gas in the car, we had to write down the odometer reading and how many gallons you put in." -- Carla Ann
"If a family member gave him a gift, he would keep it until the end of time. Mom: 'This sweater has a lot of holes in it. Maybe you should get rid of it.' Dad: 'My sister gave that to me when I graduated from college!'" -- Carl Tait
"Turn out the lights when you left a room and make sure all the outside doors were locked." -- Sue Stout Wormington
"My father was a firefighter. We were not allowed to light candles or have more than two things plugged into an outlet." -- Julie Green
"Turning my radio off in my car before I shut it down. He would get so mad if the radio was still on in the car." -- Sharon Gogny Culver
"Never eating from a paper plate. He figured he worked hard enough that he deserved a solid plate." -- Jimmy Morrison
"Not making fun of someone’s lot in life, be it financial or disabilities. Can’t tell you how many times I heard him say, 'but by the grace of God, there go I.' That and not putting off until tomorrow what you can do, or get started on today." -- Bryan Farris
"We couldn't open another kind of breakfast cereal until we had eaten all of the one that was already open. He was sure that once we'd tasted the new box, we would abandon the old box and let it go stale. Only one open box of cereal in our house, mister!" -- Todd Long
"Never leave his tools outside. They will rust. You always put his tools away. If you borrow something, it is to be returned immediately after use. It was to be exactly as it was when you borrowed it." -- Rhonda Nichols
"He kept metal Folgers cans full of bits of string, old nails, bits of wire, anything that could possibly be used again. Do NOT try to get rid of them." -- Karla Spelce Thompson
"Keeping his car cleaned. He washed his cars all the time, and when I came to visit he washed mine. Anyone who came to visit, he had them out there washing. My sister-in-law even had shirts made for all the little granddaughters that said 'Pawpaw's carwash.'" -- Joan Staley Teague
"We couldn’t have any kind of conversation. He was constantly correcting us to the point we’d stop talking to him and leave. And he wasn’t even a teacher." -- Kiri Nielsen
"I had to let my car warm up for a couple of minutes instead of starting it and taking off right away." -- Sheri Smith Kennedy
"Making up a bed like they taught him in the navy. I remember being little and just whining, 'but I'm not in the navy dad.'" -- Mollie Barragan
"Under no circumstances were you allowed to use a knife in the jelly jar. Spoons only, because the butter knife 'broke up the jelly.'" -- Rian York-Smythe
"We had to 'rotate' where we played in the yard to keep from wearing out the grass." -- Suzanne Hart
"The rows of his garden had to be straight. He would use string to mark his rows to ensure every row was straight. He also measured how far apart each plant was from each other going down the row." -- Anna Beth Anderson
"He would fold his jeans a certain way, after pulling them out of the washing machine, before carefully placing them into the dryer. He said it cut down on wrinkles." -- Kay Flesner Tiffany
"Leaving the curtains open on front windows at night! He was a cop, and he would have a fit if he came home at night and could see into the house!" -- Monica Miller
If you've paid attention to the news in 2022 or the past few years, you know this isn't exactly the easiest time to buy a house.
Actually, it's pretty much impossible.
So, of course, the So True, Y'all team had to have our say on the difficulty of purchasing a home right now. We imagined what it would be like to find a home in Birmingham, Alabama, right now, and well, it includes a $400K Barbie Dream Home. Watch the new video here.
And if you're trying to buy a house right now, bless your heart, and we hope we made you laugh a little bit.
Buc-ee’s is known for the size of its stores and for breaking world records. For a time, the store in New Braunfels, Texas, held the world record for the World’s Largest Convenience store. It is 66,335 square feet – larger than a football field. Then the store in Sevierville, Tennessee, was constructed, coming in at a massive 74,000 square feet. It is set to open soon.
That record is about to change again, spokeswoman Rachel Austin wrote in a press release.
The Buc-ee’s company is planning to build a 75,000 square foot store in Luling, Texas, to “ensure the nation's largest Buc-ee's remains where it belongs…in Texas,” the release said.
The new store will be built next to the existing Buc-ee’s in Luling. Construction is expected to begin in fall 2022.
The store will be located at 10070 Interstate10 in Luling. It will have 120 fuel pumps and a store with “thousands of snack, meal and drink options for travelers on the go, as well as the same award-winning restrooms, cheap gas, quality products and excellent service,” the release said. Buc-ee’s is known for its barbeque, homemade fudge, kolaches, Beaver nuggets and jerky.
READ MORE: I visited Buc-ee's for the first time, and yep, it's impressive
Buc-ee’s executive Stan Beard said he is happy to “strengthen our roots” in Texas. “Twenty years ago, Beaver and Don had the gumption to change the industry by building the first Buc-ee's Family Travel Center in Luling," Beard said. “Since that time, Buc-ee's has grown into an iconic Texas brand that now shares our Texas pride with new stores throughout the Southeast and West.”
Stores are now located in Alabama, Florida, South Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky and, within a few weeks, Tennessee.