Jedi Mind Tricks: Will Admiral Akbar Make His Presence Felt In The SEC?

In our lives, we get to make choices everyday. Thats one of the greatest parts of living in America... land of the free, home of the brave. But every once in a while stories like this break, and make you reconsider the idea of democracy. You should never give people the power to vote on something unless you control the parameters of what they can pick. We have primaries before elections, we narrow down nominees before we give out entertainment awards... very rarely are you given complete control to make a choice. A few years back I read a story about the British Census. They left an open space for people to pick their religous denominations. Over 390,000 people, or almost 1% of Englands population, wrote in Jedi. Yes, Jedi... the religous order of the Jedi Knights from Star Wars. Besides the fact that this is hysterical, it just goes to show you what happens when you open doors for people to make decisions. These were not just Lucas loving fanboys of Star Wars, this was 1% of Englans population. To bad Ole Miss wasn't paying attention.

About 7 years ago, Ole Miss wanted to replace their old mascot, Colonel Reb. Colonel Reb is a Confederate type soldier that has somewhat racist undertones, and since we live in politically correct times, the university wanted to get rid of him. So they have pondered what to do for a new mascot. The student body became interested in helping out with the selection, and a vote was taken by the administarion. Thousands of students voted for Admiral Akbar, Miltary Commander of The Rebel Alliance in George Lucas's Star Wars epic. Akbar is a minor character, but has the memorable line "It's a trap!" when the rebels relize they are about to be ambushed by the Empire in Return of the Jedi. Now, since the university is only looking to replace the on field mascot and will retain their "Rebels" team name, who would be a better choice to embody this?

So, in effect, Ole Miss is about to go from this:

To This:

I'm sure there are some legal issues to picking Akbar, but that is not such a huge problem. George Lucas needs to sign off on this immediately. This is a minor character, and he will be immortalized for the future on the sidelines of Ole Miss sports teams. But also, it would be a thank you from Lucas to all his fans out there. It might also open up some previous non Star Wars fans to check out the 6 part epic. I hope this happens, cause we don't get the choice to make big decisions so conmpletely very often. Wouldn't it be great if when we did it was of epic geek-like proportions??? How can you not root for these guys. Lets hope Ole Miss gets this one done... Go Rebels!!!