Since we’re signing out for the day and heading over to Dodgy At Best to pontificate on another sport we love and know shockingly little about, we leave you on this sultry Tuesday with a short but powerful video from 1995 about why the Pac-10 is ten times more vicious than we wannabe hooligans in the SEC will ever know.

Note a few things, though:

–Solid mat work by Tree here, who clearly has some judo or Brazilian jiujitsu background. Call UFC immediately.

–Oski, despite some solid strikes, clearly could have used a standing start to the match. More of a boxer and less of a grappler, though what the hell can you grab on tree besides a couple of hula hoops and a googly eye?

–We think Oski remains the clear winner here despite suffering a countering head slam into the court. Note that Tree fights dirty but effectively by decapping Oski and slamming not the mascot head, but the actual head of the mascot onto the hardcourt.

–A mascot led off by security is almost as funny as a mascot being assaulted. Seeing the two in a single video is a package deal for the senses.

–We would also like to add that despite seeing him a decade-old video of him fighting in public, Oski’s reputation is solid in our book. You might even say stellar.

When trees and bears fight. Almost as funny as people busting ass on slides.

Nathan’s grading out the suck ratings of Big 12 mascots. In case this doesn’t sound side-splitting funny to you…

It’s purple. It’s unoriginal. It’s a lame generic nickname. The mascot’s name “Willie” isn’t even unique (Northwestern’s has the same name). AND IT’S ONLY A HEAD.

We couldn’t agree more. And Nathan, like us, finds the inflatable Herbie Husker to be the horrifying shit of David Lynch-esque nightmares.

Mommie, will fire make it go away forever?

Pepidemiology, Chapter 4: Live Mascots

Long delayed but ultmately finished, we continue our study of the art and science of college
pomp and circumstance, Pepidemiology, with chapter 4: live mascots. (Catch up on your studies with parts 1, 2, and 3 if you missed class.)

Cam the Ram wants you to study Pepidemiology.

Live mascots may represent the most primitive level of fan worship, the actual physical incarnation of a team’s animus made animal, sitting there chained/leashed/tethered on the sidelines. Mascots are chosen like Indian totems, each representing an attribute or set of attributes the team seeks to adopt by proximity to the totem. The choice of attributes, however, is selective at best, and downright picky at worst. While Auburn may certainly want to be as ferocious as a Tiger, they would certainly not want to adopt the values of sleeping 20 hours a day, eating competitor’s young, and peeing on objects to mark their territory. (Though Auburn fans have certainly been known to pee indiscriminately after games, and are not alone in this behavior.)
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Welcome to Chapter Three of our ongoing study of the art and science of college rah-rahdom also known as Pepidemiology. Chapter Three will focus on an oft-overlooked but integral part of college pep: the costumed mascot.

ASU’s Sparky: Devil worship never looked so funny.
Note must be made here about the term “costumed mascot.” The mascot, the living, breathing symbol of a team, can sometimes be a living, breathing member of the species, as in the cases of Bevo the Longhorn, Ralphie the Buffalo, or Uga the Bulldog at UGA. We’re splitting mascots in two categories for a good reason: costumed mascots and animal mascots have distinctly different skill sets. Ralphie can stampede, the War Eagle can fly around Auburn, and Smokey the Hound Dog at Tennessee can bite people on the sidelines with impunity. We remain certain that this is not the case with costumed human mascots, though Tree at Stanford may indeed be capable of the biting part, for all we know. Thus the division into two categories in our taxonomy. (This is science, people.)
The costumed mascot takes on one of three forms:
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Welcome to the second chapter of the art and science of Pepidemiology, focusing on supplemental music and cheers First, a moment to define what we mean by each term for the layperson:
–Supplemental music: Music played by a band or from the booth assisting in the creation of an atmosphere beneficial to the home team NOT including their designated fight song. Examples include USC’s “Tribute to Troy,” the playing of the “Imperial March” at Miami, and “Hold That Tiger,” played by the Clemson, LSU, Missouri, and Princeton bands for their team.
–Cheers: anything chanted in unison to enhance pro-home team vibe or anti-visiting team attitude. Examples include just about anything Texas A&M does with their Yell Captains, the Seminole war chant, and “Go Blue” at Michigan.

Yes, he’s just a white guy with war paint on, but he’s got a hell of theme song.
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We begin chapter one of our lessons and investigations of Pepidemiology, the science of Pep and fandom in college football, with a brief overview of the most basic element of Pepidemiology, the fight song.
First of all, the fight song is not to be confused with other music played by the band or the PA (hello, Canes) during the course of a game. Georgia may play “Go Georgia Bulldogs,” and Texas may play “Yellow Rose of Texas,” “Deep in the Heart of Texas,” and even “Pussy Got Me Dizzay” by Houston’s UGK, they are all not the official fight song of Texas, “Texas Fight.” In this chapter we will only be discussing the officially sanctioned fight songs of each school-supplemental music will be covered in subsequent chapters, along with cheers, pregame and ingame traditions, and quality of fan participation, including alcohol tolerance and propensity to fill up the jails on game day.

Clemson fans are experts in the art and science of Pepidemiology. They can also drink quite a bit, too, which helps.
What makes a fight song? A good title helps. The title should be something invoking the name of the school or the team: hence, the Colorado Buffaloes’ “Fight CU,” or the Wisconsin Badgers’ “On Wisconsin.” Having an exhortation in there helps, too, like “fight,” “fight on,” or a noun like “victory” or something irresistable like “march.” Any of those will do. Note: a few choice fight songs avoid all of these, instead going for something more evocative, such as Tennessee’s “Rocky Top,” or even have two fight songs, as in Ohio State’s case. As with all rules, exceptions are allowed, as long as they’re not too divergent with tradition. The best example of an intolerable choice of fight song came in the early 1990s, when Miami abandoned their traditional “Miami U Fight Song” for “Pop that Thang” by 2 Live Crew. The move was short-lived, but it stands as how NOT to do a fight song at the college level.

The ‘Canes were, for a while, as nasty as they wanted to be.
The next important ingredient is sound. Since most theme music for colleges orginated in the 1920s and 30s, the sound is a traditional one with modernist tweaks: military band arrangements with ragtimey accent, typically played very quickly, often ripped through at lightspeed following big plays in games. The songs should not be pleasing to the ear; leave that to the snoozy alma maters. The fight song should sound like one is waltzing with a hippo on methamphetamine, or driving an overloaded truck down a steep mountain road with no brakes, a flat tire, and a head full of schnapps. It should sound like an arrangement three feet from disaster, ideally. Southern bands are allowed slightly funkier arrangements, heavier on the ragtime and jazz; military schools or teams with more martial team names (Trojans, etc.) are allowed more emphasis on precision and pomp. Above all, it should sound like two hundred slightly tipsy college students playing music in wool/poly uniforms with less than perfect musicianship. Unless you’re FAMU’s band, the best college unit in the land, complete with the best trumpet line and funkadelic dance routines.

All of the rules above are null and void when talking about the amazing FAMU Rattlers’ Band.
So you know the basics now. Let’s explore the essential tunes, broken down into several different categories:
1. The Musty Classics: USC’s “Fight On” is a near-perfect example of what we tab as a classic fight song: pleasantly martial, with a thumping bass drum and a cheeky woodwind interlude in the middle, it could be a fight song or the theme to a WWII caper movie starring David Niven and Lee Marvin as paratroopers leading an impossible mission behind enemy lines. Their arch-nemesis, Notre Dame, also scores high marks for the “Notre Dame Victory March,” heavy on the brass and crazy, trilling woodwinds. Meeeechigan’s “The Victors” is heavy on the pomp and drama, and just sounds like a team pounding their way down the field. “On Wisconsin” is another classic of great dignity and grandeur, even if we always sing the following lyrics to it:
On Wisconsin,
On Wisconsin,
Give us all your cheese…
Finally, the last two essentials are the best of the academy themes, Navy’s “Anchors Aweigh” and Air Force’s “Wild Blue Yonder.” Both are stirring, fun, and almost make you want to put on a uniform.
2. The Regional Specialties. Down south, the fight songs tend to involve a little more swing to them, consistent with the regional inability to be on time or read directions properly. This has produced classic like LSU’s “Fight for LSU” , which even sounds like a New Orleans piano rag, the swingy “Yea Alabama,” or even Texas’ “Texas Fight”, with its smeary trombone parts and mock reveille in the middle.
Some songs go a different way with the regional specialty. The most notable is Tennessee, who took a song describing the murder of snooping outsiders and turned into a hoedowny fight song that soothes the ears of Vols fans and causes most others’ to bleed in annoyance, “Rocky Top.”. The Civil War still lives in Athens, with UGA adopting “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” as its fight song.
3. The Dullards Much as it pains us to say this, some fight songs are so devoid of character they make Kelly Clarkson sound like Billy Holiday in comparison. The University of Florida, our own alma mater, suffers from a painfully bland fight song, “Orange and Blue.” Colorado’s “Fight CU” comes dangerously close to a dirge, and Ohio State gets relegated to the “Dullards” category for having not one, but two tepid fight songs. What makes them all so bad? They’re practically indistinguishable from the next, a description that could apply to the majority of college fight songs. (Especially the MAC and the Sun Belt conferences: they’re posted, but don’t bother listening to them. We went through the tedium so you didn’t have to, dear reader.) In a final note, we put the otherwise peppy Florida State fight song in this category, not for lack of quality, but for bad planning. The song features a spell-out in the middle that opponents have taken advantage of for years to turn the song against them:
F-L-0-R-I-D-A…S-T-A-T-E!
(Hostile crowd, in unison: SUCKS!)
Florida State! Florida State! Florida State!
(Hostile crowd, again in thunderous unison: SUCKS!)
4. The Hidden Gems. Some fight songs, however, surprise. Maryland’s is extremely elegant and classy, with an exceptional sing-along bit. “Mighty Oregon” is another pleasant surprise, very traditional and grand with plenty of trumpet-led choruses and a puffy, critical-sounding bridge. Finally, we have to give the Sunshine State’s best fight song to UM,
whose “Miami U Fight Song” has a great chattering drum line part and a tamper-free spellout complete with “Fight fight fight!” in the middle of it. If only you could hear it over the Trick Daddy tunes at the games.
Next week’s installment of Pepidemiology will be Supplemental Music and Cheers.. Please review all materials, as there will be a quiz over the material we covered today. We’re off to the Pink Pony-good day.
NOTE: All links to fight songs came lovingly from: http://www.netheaduniversity.com and http://fightmusic.com/. Please give ‘em some love.