At the University of Mississippi, football reigns supreme. The sport’s cultural hegemony captures the unwavering loyalty of students, alumni and fans across the nation, defining a veritable component of the “Ole Miss identity.”
As fun as Saturdays in the Grove are, I believe our devotion to Ole Miss Football has become its own religion, crowding out everything else this university is.
The official Latin motto that defines our school is “Pro scienta et sapienta,” translating to “For knowledge and wisdom.” Unfortunately, I see these values often overshadowed by much of the student body, dominated by a focus on weekend plans instead of academic excellence.
Just a few weekends ago, the infamous reckoning with the LSU Tigers attracted over 210,000 viewers to our college town. The Ole Miss fandom is growing, and the entire country has its eyes on our university as our athletic reputation creeps higher on the NCAA totem pole.
During home game weekends, Rebel fans are willing to write an entire month’s paycheck to cheer on the red and blue.On any given Saturday, even tailgating setups can run families into the thousands.
For the university, Ole Miss Football is not merely an athletic competition, economic powerhouse or engine to generate national notoriety. It has ascended to an almost divine status.
While it is perfectly acceptable to partake in a good, old-fashioned rivalry, I fear this school’s obsession with SEC titles and intercollegiate vengeance is consuming our very identity. When the entire identity of our institution becomes continually boiled down to intercollegiate victories, it becomes necessary to reflect.
When I imagine the university, I think of the various academic programs budding with innovative research, inspiring professors and aspiring pupils. I reflect upon the sheer diversity of student-led initiatives on and off campus, a symbol of our collective commitment to moving forward. I consider how far we have come as an institution, as a community and as a college town.
When fandom becomes worship, when athletes become idols and when treacherous coaches are as despised as the Antichrist, our respect for everything else that makes the university the institution it is diminishes.
The University is, first and foremostly, an educational institution. That should be our utmost priority as students. Access to quality and accessible learning has and continues to be a right for which we protest, a privilege which fades when we disregard its centrality.
Far too many students, however, enroll not for a degree, or even to expand their knowledge and wisdom, but to participate in a dopamine-fueled culture. It is a shame that the highlight of many students’ fall is not a new seminar, enriching themselves with new perspectives or engaging in a new extracurricular, but getting egregiously inebriated at an Ole Miss football game.
While Saturdays in the Grove are an unmistakable component of the Ole Miss name, we cannot allow these traditions to be all-consuming. If you spend more time watching ESPN than staying cognizant of the national and local news cycle, planning your tailgate than deciding how to vote or doing more daydreaming about crazy game day benders than reflecting on why you are a student in the first place, you might need to reevaluate your love for the game.
Lenora Collier is a junior international studies major from Hattiesburg, Miss.
