Forde-Yard Dash: What, Exactly, Are These Words in My College Fight Song?

“Hotty Toddy” might make the most sense of the incredible number of nonsensical sayings The Dash dug up. Let’s sing them together.

Boomer Sooner, indeed. | USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect

Forty names, games, teams and minutiae making news in college football, where Florida coach Jon Sumrall wants to know what the oddsmakers are smoking after making his team the favorite against Mississippi. First Quarter: Exposure Saturday. Second Quarter: Formidable or Fraudulent? Third Quarter: 10 Pressing Questions for This Week, and Beyond.

Fourth Quarter: The Enduring Gibberish of College Fight Songs

After spending two days in Oxford, Miss., The Dash has heard enough “Hotty Toddy” chants to last a lifetime. It was a reminder that college football has spawned an incredible number of nonsensical sayings that become beloved nomenclature on their campuses. And once they become ingrained nomenclature, they never die.

As it turns out, this is the 100th anniversary of the first documentation of the Hotty Toddy chant at Mississippi (31), even though it was originally “Heighty Tighty.” (Not to be confused with tighty-whities.)

This high-minded oration has been handed down for generations: 

Are you ready?
Hell yeah! Damn right!
Hotty Toddy, gosh almighty,
Who the hell are we? Hey!
Flim flam, bim bam!
Ole Miss by damn!

Hard to believe that William Faulkner was writing in Mississippi around that same time and never came up with “flim flam, bim bam!”

But the highfalutin schools had their inscrutable songs and sayings, too. Yale (32) foisted upon the world “Boola Boola,” attributed to student Allan Hirsch, in 1900. The lyrics and music are believed to be adapted from a piece by a pair of popular Black singer-songwriters in the late 1800s. 

The song takes a shot at Harvard, while otherwise enthusiastically repeating itself: 

Boola boola, boola boola
Boola boola, boola boola
When we roughhouse poor old Hahvahd
They will holler, “Boola boo”
Oh Yale, Eli Yale! Oh Yale, Eli Yale!
Oh Yale, Eli Yale! Oh Yale, Eli Yale!

That ditty then became co-opted by Oklahoma (33), which in 1905 produced this font of creativity: 

Boomer Sooner, Boomer Sooner
Boomer Sooner, Boomer Sooner
Boomer Sooner, Boomer Sooner
Boomer Sooner, OK U!
Oklahoma, Oklahoma
Oklahoma, Oklahoma
Oklahoma, Oklahoma
Oklahoma, OK U! 

A year later, Oklahoma stole from a second school (North Carolina) to flesh out the tune with another stanza: 

I’m a Sooner born and Sooner bred
And when I die, I’ll be Sooner dead
Rah Oklahoma, Rah Oklahoma
Rah Oklahoma, OK U! 

Oklahoma says the fight song “evokes enthusiasm from OU fans and sends chills down the spines of those who dare to oppose them.” The Dash suspects those chills were more attributable to Lee Roy Selmon and Billy Sims than the fight song, but whatever.

Alarmingly, there are also multiple Oskee/Oski Wow-Wows (34), with Illinois apparently starting that tomfoolery and Cal picking up on it. 

The chorus at Illinois: 

Oskee-wow-wow, Illinois
Our eyes are all on you
Oskee-wow-wow, Illinois
Wave your Orange and Blue, Rah! Rah!
When your team trots out before you
Ev’ry man stand up and yell
Back the team to gain a victory
Oskee-wow-wow, Illinois

The lyrics went downhill when co-opted at Cal:

Oski Wow-Wow!
Whiskey Wee-Wee!
Olee! Muckie-eye!
Olee! Berkeley-eye!
California! Wow!

Wow, indeed.

Those songs at least have an upbeat cadence, unlike the “Good Old Song” at Virginia (35), which combines non-words with the maudlin tune of “Auld Lang Syne”: 

Wah-hoo-wah, wah-hoo-wah!
Uni-v, Virginia!
Hoo-rah-ray, hoo-rah-ray
Ray, ray, UVA!

At Texas A&M (36), the Aggie War Hymn has a compelling backstory: it was written by J.V. “Pinky” Wilson on the back of an envelope while he was sitting in a trench in France during World War I. Among its creative liberties with the English language: 

Hullabaloo, Caneck! Caneck!
Hullabaloo, Caneck! Caneck!

And: 

Chig-gar-roo-gar-rem
Chig-gar-roo-gar-rem
Rough tough! Real stuff! Texas A&M!

All of this increases The Dash’s respect for Stanford (37), which just took the music from 1970 rock song “All Right Now” by the English group Free, dropped the lyrics, and called it a day.

Coach Who Earned His Comp Car 

Will Stein (38), Kentucky

Three games into his head coaching career, Stein has already hung a huge skin on the wall by beating Texas A&M on the road. The 36-year-old provided a needed energy boost for a program that had gotten stale under Mark Stoops. Stein has the necessary bravado (and strategic acumen) to duke it out in the SEC.

Coach Who Should Take the Bus to Work 

Bronco Mendenhall (39), Utah State

He’s had a strange career path, going from a 99–43 record as a fixture at BYU to a wandering, losing record ever since. Mendenhall went 36–38 at Virginia, then 5–7 in a single season at New Mexico, and is now 6–10 at Utah State. 

That includes an 0–3 mark this season, with a loss to FCS program Idaho State and a shutout blowout against in-state rival Utah. In between was a respectable performance against Washington. His Aggies have thrown eight interceptions in three games, topped only by Rutgers’s nine.

Point After 

When Oxford is too crowded, The Dash recommends relocating to the SEC crossroads city of Memphis (40) to eat, drink and be merry. Get the criminally good pulled pork sandwich at Payne’s Bar-B-Q, the ribs at Rendezvous and an Ananda IPA wherever you can find it. Thank The Dash later.

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