Much ado has been written regarding the University of Nebraska’s rebranding of their iconic mascot, Herbie Husker. For nearly fifty years, Herbie Husker, donned with a red cowboy hat, blue jeans, an ear of corn in his pocket (read on for the unusual history of this reference) and inexplicably, an OK hand sign. Inexplicable because in addition to it being a symbol newly adopted by far-right extremists and white supremacist groups in recent years, it also stands for Oklahoma. No doubt that state’s abbreviation is on the chopping block next. The idea that the OK gesture represented the letters “WP” for “white power” first appeared in 2017 as part of a 4chan hoax meant to trigger and troll liberals has now been coopted unironically by extremely creative elements of the far-right.
In an interview with the Flatwater Free Press, Lonna Henrichs, the licensing and branding director for the university’s athletic department, indicated that, “that hand gesture could, in come circles, represent something that does not represent what Nebraska athletics is about,” and “we just didn’t even want to be associated with portraying anything that somebody might think, you know, that it means white power.” Clown, meet world. Speaking of treys, a simple solution would have been to turn Herbie’s wrist around and point his three fingers to the ground, similar to what every college basketball player does when they drop a three, but the University decided to go with a No.1 gesture, which would be about on par with the number of wins the football team managed in the 2021 season.
Unfortunately, yet again, the woke herd got it all wrong, for it’s the recent basketball logo that is problematic, not the football one.
Let’s start with the basics, firstly, are those socks or just the remains of the cuffs of the jeans from football Herbie? Second, why does basketball Herbie have a leftover rolled up sleeve on one side and nothing on the other? Lastly, given that he is spinning the ball with his hand in a No.1 type position, when his other hand gets the No.1 re-branding, he’ll basically be giving the pew-pew symbol, watch out Texas Tech.
But that’s just the beginning of Herbie’s woes, once the OK is removed, the WP still exists! Yikes.
Now, returning to the aforementioned corn in the pocket reference: bad backs used to be common in rural Nebraska from all the corn picking, hence the original logo for the University showing incredibly poor posture.This was also before Nebraskan’s realized they could put corn in their pockets and take the load off of their backs, which happened in the 1970’s, right around the time of Old Herbie coming into existence. Coincidence? Or just human ingenuity at its finest? You be the judge.
This author’s suggestion is to just return to digital cornhead man or is it a woman with all the flowing hair. I daresay I have no idea.
