Col. Rebel played key role in 1998 Cassreino proposal

By TERRY R. CASSREINO

MADISON (Saturday, Oct. 16, 2010) – When the Univerisity of Mississippi announced this week that its new mascot will be a black bear, my thoughts raced back some 12 years to a fateful day in Oxford that forever changed my life.

Col. Rebel, Ole Miss’ much maligned mascot, played a key role that day – as did the Ole Miss cheerleaders and a large contingent of friends. With their help, I staged an elaborate wedding proposal on Saturday, Sept. 5, 1998, for the woman who ultimately became my beautiful wife.

Pam and I were married on Saturday, May 15, 1999, at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church in Madison. The wedding was unforgettable, as I’m sure most are. But our journey officially began eight months earlier on the Ole Miss campus.


At half-time of the Ole Miss-Memphis game, before a then-record crowd of more than 57,000 people in Vaught-Hemingway Stadium, Col. Rebel and the cheerleaders slowly climbed 57 rows to our sideline seats. Once there, Col. Rebel pulled out a T-shirt that had these airbrushed words: “Will you marry me?”

Pam was stunned. I won’t say anymore because my friends captured everything on video. I recently digitized the analog video, edited it and posted it to You Tube. It’s not professional or broadcast quality. It’s not high-definition. And the picture is shaky, hand-held quality.

But it captures a precise moment in time. And now I can share it with everyone.

Call me crazy (some of you no doubt will), but I don’t think this would have been the same or had the same effect if a man dressed in a black bear suit trudged up the aisle and pulled out the T-shirt I used for the proposal. It just seemed to work better with Col. Rebel.

And, of course, thank you to Ed Meek – because without his help I would not have been able to accomplish such an outlandish stunt.

Enjoy.