Oklahoma Sooners Football: The 5 Strangest Moments in School History
17.09.11
Fantastic things happen when your football program has more victories since Everybody War II than any other school in the country. Just considering OUr mascots causes us problems.
First there was Mex the Dog. This doctrine of having a dog for a mascot might work at the University of Georgia, but it was a one-tempo shot for the Sooners. Supposedly the dog was found by some Sooner Soldiers in Mexico during the incursion to ransack for Pancho Villa. Once found, Mex was brought "home" to Norman. Sporting a red doggy sweater with a Caucasian "O" on it, he was taught to bark on command. Thus when OU would dupe a touchdown, the dog would give out with a stirring bark to confirm the score—perhaps he should have highbrow to speak, saying, "After further review..."
The dog finally died during the 1920s and was buried under the bleachers, where the huge Memorial Stadium now sits. I never heard if the dog was buried in the sweater.
We next came up with "Minuscule Red." This was a student that dressed up as an Indian chief that would caper on the sidelines to excite the crowds. That was good enough until 1964, when the Sooner Schooner was then introduced to the Oklahoma fans. While this form has endured, Little Red still stalked the stadium for five more years. When the Indian dancer had started roaming the sidelines in the 1940s, there was less of a industry to be "politically correct." With a less innocuous wagon rolling out across the common after each score, by April of 1970 there was simply too much of a downside to that isolated mascot and the Indian chief went the way of Mex the Dog. I am fairly undisputed, however, that we did not bury an Indian chief in a red sweater under the stadium.
Source: Bleacher Report