Every good Bulldog needs a cowbell. Almost any store in Starkville sells them, and if that isn’t good enough, fans can buy custome cowbells, made to fit any Go-Dawgs attitude. This harmless noisemaker has been a Mississippi State tradition since, as legend has it, a cow wandered onto the football field before an MSU-Ole Miss game. The Bulldogs beat the Rebels, and the cowbell became a good luck charm.
Cowbells have been on the MSU scene since the 1940s. Some fans use them to show their pride in this “aggie” school and to show that MSU is more than “cow college.” Others ring them because pompoms just don’t have the same effect. And of course, we all know that we ring them because they tick off other schools.
In 1974, the SEC banned artificial noisemakers from SEC games. But what about screaming fans? Or loud sound systems? An uproarious crowd or “Welcome to the Jungle” at deafening volumes is more distracting than a few little bells.
The SEC ban has not stopped Bulldog fans from bringing cowbells into the stadium and ringing them defiantly. MSU students, alumni and fans have become notorious in the SEC for “breaking the rules” and sneaking cowbells into SEC games.
Other SEC schools and MSU critics have ridiculed Jackie Sherrill for encouraging fans to bring their cowbells to support the football team, MSU officials in general for not enforcing the SEC rule and fans for blatantly breaking the rule.
While this cowbell hullabaloo surrounds little ole MSU, do you know what spectators in Salt Lake City are ringing in support of Olympic athletes? Cowbells.
According to www.cowbell.com, the bells are a European sporting-event tradition, stemming from an old Nordic tradition.
The bells at the Olympics were fashioned after Norwegian cowbells, originally designed by Tobias Moen in the ’20s and made from brass ammunition cartridges from Norwegian military practice ranges.
Cowbells are not newcomers at the Olympics, though. They also rang at the 1994 Lillehammer Winter Olympics.
The SEC banned the bells because football players couldn’t hear plays called on the field, or so the players said. Meanwhile, Olympic athletes have trained years to be good enough to compete to be the best in the world at their respective sports. Olympic athletes get one chance to show their stuff … and they haven’t complained about cowbells.
Granted, I am not, nor will I ever be, a football player, but it seems like the players who “couldn’t hear” are just whining, and the SEC is just waiting for an opportunity to tighten MSU’s reins.
Although you wouldn’t know it to see me now, I was an athlete once. I competed when I was sick and with sprains and breaks, so I know some of what college athletes go through. But you can’t hear? Give me a break!
To those athletes who complain about our cowbells: Suck it up and play-that’s your job. To the Bulldogs: Take a lesson from the Olympics. Next football season, stand by Sherrill and the Bulldogs. Bring your cowbell to Davis Wade Stadium and ring them loud and proud, despite the SEC rule.