UNC Athletics – History on the Hill

Rameses: A Mascot’s Story

The image of Rameses the ram sneers out from all manner of University of North Carolina memorabilia. His angry glare can be spotted on shirts, hats, keychains and bumper stickers. Of course, most Tar Heels know that there are really two different Rameses that represent the school at events both sporting and non-sporting. The story of the live Rameses, a Horned Dorset Sheep who attends home Carolina football games with Carolina blue horns, is fairly well-known. In 1924, the head of the Carolina cheerleaders, Vic Huggins, suggested buying a ram mascot to support star player Jack “The Battering Ram” Merritt. Rameses the First was purchased for $25 and the lineage has stayed in the same family all the way up to today, with Rameses XXII serving as the incumbent.

The story of the Rameses mascot, a human student inside an anthropomorphic ram costume, is less famous but equally important to the story of Carolina spirit. In 1988, students at UNC expressed interest in getting a Rameses mascot that could attend indoor events (such as basketball games) and help promote spirit across the campus and surrounding communities. At the time, UNC was the only school in the ACC without a costumed mascot. When the first Rameses costume premiered during the 1987-88 season, reactions were lukewarm.

The first costume was designed locally and featured horns made out of clay, which made the costume head heavy and difficult to move for the student inside. This student—the first to play Rameses—was senior Eric Chilton from Mount Airy, NC. The ram costume also wore a friendly expression, which some students felt wasn’t a strong representation of UNC’s tough and talented sports teams. In the October 21, 1988 edition of The Daily Tar Heel, a senior named Mike Isenhour was quoted to say, “I definitely think that we should get a new one. [The mascot] looked real wimpy. If there is going to be a new one, it should definitely be meaner.”

Students wanted the mascot to look more like the familiar face of Rameses seen on the UNC logo—with a tougher and more determined expression on his face. The new costume was designed by Stage Craft, a Cincinnati based company that also designed the Demon Deacon costume for Wake Forest University.

The newly designed Rameses costume premiered at the January 1989 basketball game versus NC State. He was designed to mirror the Rameses of the school logo, with a fierce scowl on his face, a Carolina blue jersey and a small hat.

Photo: The Daily Tar Heel, Jan. 30, 1989

The new mascot, the true identity of which was cloaked in secrecy, was elected from 12 people who auditioned. He attended both cheerleading camp and mascot camp for training. The mascot (not identified by name in the January 30, 1989 edition of the DTH), explained how acting worked when inside the costume. “Emotions have to be expressed with hand and body movements,” he said, noting that all movements had to be exaggerated.

This version of costumed Rameses was more popular than the original and became a crowd-pleasing addition to both athletics and community events. This version remained in active service until the late 1990s, when the costume was updated to the current design familiar to UNC students of today. This new design achieved a desired middle-ground between the happy-go-lucky initial design and the grumpy Rameses of the 1990s.

Today’s Rameses was designed to look muscular and intimidating and he has become a familiar sight at Carolina sporting events.

In 2007, Jason Ray was the cheerleader assigned to perform as Rameses at events. On March 23, 2007, he was struck by a car outside of the cheerleaders’ hotel in New Jersey. UNC were preparing for the Sweet Sixteen game against USC at the time. Ray died of his injuries on March 26, 2007 and his organ donation saved several lives. He was an honors student set to graduate that May with a degree in Business and a minor in religious studies.

The long tradition of UNC adapting Rameses to changing times has continued to the modern era. On October 23, 2015 an addition was made to the Carolina mascot team with the debut of Rameses Jr. (or “RJ”).

Photo: The Daily Tar Heel, October 23, 2015

Rameses Jr. looks different from his older brother, with blue horns, blue eyes, a less muscular physique and a friendlier facial expression. RJ was created to take on some of the mascot’s responsibilities because Rameses is in very high demand for public events. He was designed to increase the appeal of Rameses to young children, as he has a softer and less scary look. He can help broaden community outreach and serve as a good ambassador for the youngest Tar Heels.

Rameses, along with RJ and his ovine cousin Rameses XXII, continue to serve as strong representatives for the Tar Heel community and are a huge part of the spirit of the university.

Football Banned!

When football arrived on southern college campuses in the late 1870s, it was not without controversy. Some in the South resented the sport’s northern roots, while many others–especially religious leaders–feared that it put players and spectators in unnecessary physical and moral danger. In 1890, the administration of UNC was starting to agree, and after just two seasons of intercollegiate football, the Board of Trustees banned competition with other schools, citing the disorder and injury the game encouraged.

A football game in the early 1900s (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Image Collection #P0004, North Carolina Collection Photographic Archive)

UNC organized its first intramural football teams in the 1880s, and by the end of that decade football was one of the most popular sports on campus. In 1888, UNC competed against Wake Forest in the first documented intercollegiate football game in the South. Spectators reported that the game was disorderly and confused, as neither team had a firm grasp on the rules of the game, and UNC lost 6 to 4. Competition was largely unregulated–there were almost no limits as to who could join the team on the field, and games sometimes dissolved into fights. Within the span of a year, three students suffered serious injuries on the football field–the team’s captain, Steve Bragaw, broke his leg in a game against Trinity (now Duke), and in the following season, student George Graham broke his collar bone and another student broke his wrist. In 1889, the university called for all games to be played on college grounds, hoping that greater supervision might rein in the disorder. When this failed, the faculty recommended a ban, and it was passed by the Board of Trustees on February 20, 1890.

The Board explained that while intercollegiate games were said to encourage exercise, foster inter-institutional relationships, and encourage “the boys of the country” to pursue a college education, the “necessary evils” of the sport “over balanced the benefits.” The Board argued that the sport’s impact on exercise was limited as only a few actually played, while many more neglected their studies to sit and watch. Citing player injuries, they argued that the game was physically dangerous and expressed fear that “the furious rivalry engendered by contests in presence of numerous spectators” encouraged brutality, conflict, and “hatreds” between schools. They not only feared for the students’ physical safety but also their morality, citing the “great deal of betting” that accompanied intercollegiate contests and expressing worry that the ” unusual excitement” caused by games might encourage “drinking and rowdyism.”

UNC’s football team in 1891, the first season after the ban was lifted (The Hellenian, North Carolina Collection)

Ten months later, a group of students led by football players George Graham, Samuel Blount, Alexander Stronach, Drew Patterson, and Perrin Busbee circulated a petition to end the ban. The faculty formed a committee to discuss the issue (an early incarnation of the Faculty Athletics Committee) and an agreement was reached. Intercollegiate sports were revived, but under the governance of an advisory committee. This committee, originally composed of a faculty member, a graduate student, and an undergraduate, would be instrumental in the administration and regulation of campus athletics in the coming years. UNC’s 1891 season was discouraging, as the team came away with a 0-2 record. However, over the next few years, the Tar Heels developed into one of the best teams in the South, winning the 1895 Southern Intercollegiate Athletics Association championship and going undefeated in 1898. For two of UNC’s rivals, however, the controversy over football continued. In 1895, both Wake Forest and Trinity, motivated in large part by their religious affiliations, banned the sport. Trinity did not field another team until 1920, while Wake Forest returned to the field in 1907.

Eighty-Nine Years of Championship Basketball

1959 program from the Southern Conference’s Dixie Classic. (Records of the Athletic Communications Office, #40308, University Archives.)

Eighty-nine years ago this past Monday, the Tar Heels basketball team won the first championship tournament of the then newly formed Southern Conference. The men’s basketball team went on to win seven more SoCon tournaments before joining the Atlantic Coast Conference, which it helped to form, in 1953. Collegiate sports regulations have changed over the decades but the reputation of Tar Heel athletes remains stellar across myriad sports.

First page of President Graham’s statement to faculty. (Records of the Office of the Vice President for Finance, #40011, University Archives.)

College athletics has long played an important role in the university’s history. President Frank Porter Graham addressed faculty in 1938, extolling “the spirit of youth in the democracy of sports.” He believed that sound regulations and codes would allow a stadium to become a rallying place full of “high devotion expressed in music, songs, cheers, struggle, and drama, deep with loyalties called forth by the precious meaning of the alma mater.” Graham notes that codes of sportsmanship, like academic study, carry over into “human relations, industrial, inter-racial, and international.”

A new conference is born. (Records of the Office of the Vice President for Finance, #40011, University Archives.)

In 1953, UNC–Chapel Hill founded the Atlantic Coast Conference together with six other schools. In a copy of a letter to Dr. Oliver K. Cornwell, the temporary secretary of the as-yet unnamed conference, Chancellor R.B. House confirms the university’s withdrawal from the Southern Conference. Today, N.C. State, Duke, Wake Forest, Clemson, and Maryland, along with UNC, are still members of the ACC. Thus began an illustrious history that continues to the present.