Rameses

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Rameses
Rameses at a basketball game. Photo courtesy shadle
University	University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Conference	ACC
Description	Horned Dorset Ram
Origin of name	1920s fullback Jack Merritt ("The Battering Ram")
First seen	1924
Official website	Rameses

Rameses is the mascot of the North Carolina Tar Heels. There are two versions of Rameses. One is a cheerleader in a ram costume performed by a male member of the North Carolina cheerleading team at athletic events; the second a live Horned Dorset Sheep named Rameses who attends Carolina football games with his horns painted Carolina Blue.^[1]

[edit] Origin

The origin of a ram as Carolina's mascot dates back to 1924. In 1922, the star fullback, Jack Merritt, was given the nickname the battering ram for his performance on the field. Vic Huggins, Carolina's head cheerleader at the time, suggested the idea of a ram mascot to the athletic business manager, Charles T. Woollen, and had the idea approved. The first appearance of Rameses was at a pep rally before the game against Virginia Military Institute on November 8, 1924.^[2][3][4]

[edit] Jason Ray

On March 23, 2007, Jason Ray, the cheerleader assigned to the Rameses costume, was struck by a vehicle outside the Carolina cheerleaders' hotel on Route 4 in Fort Lee, New Jersey prior to the men's basketball team's Sweet Sixteen game with the University of Southern California. He died on March 26, 2007 at the Hackensack University Medical Center as a result of the injuries sustained in the accident.

Jason was an honors student and due to graduate that May with a degree in business, and minor in religious studies. He was an Eagle Scout, had gone on three missionary trips (Haiti, Honduras, and Puerto Rico) to work with children, had visited the Sistine Chapel, run with the bulls in Spain, spent a summer studying in Copenhagen, Denmark, and was also an active member of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, his church choir, and lead singer in in the band 9pm Traffic.^[5][6]

The ESPN website did an E-ticket article on Jason Ray's life, and the lives of four people who were saved because he chose to become an organ donor.^[7][8]

[edit] References

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