OXFORD — Langston Rogers has been an authority on everything Ole Miss for more than four decades. And not even he is sure where the school’s signature phrase comes from.
Rogers began working as a sports information director at Ole Miss in 1981. He’s since helped assemble an archive of every imaginable moment in Ole Miss athletics history. The collection is more vault than filing cabinet. A code is required for entrance into the records; they are on automated, moving shelves and cover everything from before Johnny Vaught to stories written as recently as today.
When the opportunity to work in Oxford came about 43 years ago, Rogers wanted to study up on everything there was to know about his new job. He bought books, determined to learn all there was so he could hit the ground running.
There was only one problem. The reading skipped a major chapter.
“Those books didn’t mention ‘Hotty Toddy,’” Rogers, now a special assistant in history to the athletics director, said with a laugh.
The specific origins of the phrase “Hotty Toddy” and the adjoining chant you’ve probably heard ad nauseum are nebulous at best. One prevailing theory is it was related to the Virginia Tech Regimental Band, known as the Highty-Tighties, per the Oxford Eagle. Other legends say it has to do with the alcoholic beverage of the same name — lemon, honey and whiskey, among other things, accentuated by a cinnamon stick. One historian told the Oxford Eagle it might relate to a World War II chant. Multiple reports suggest the first written evidence of the phrase at Ole Miss came in the Daily Mississippian in 1926, then written as “Heighty! Tighty!”
The truth of the phrase’s birth and meaning, though, is lost to time.
“I didn’t know anything until I came on my visit. That was the first time I heard (Hotty Toddy),” Rebels senior quarterback Jaxson Dart said. “ … That was one of the first questions I asked was, ‘What does this mean?’ And nobody could give me an answer.”
Whether it be at a supermarket in Oxford, an airport, a foreign country or some combination of the above, “Hotty Toddy” knows no bounds.
The sight of an Ole Miss logo elicits the simple, nonsensical, rhyming two-word response in the same way a script Alabama “A” might force a “Roll Tide” from a passerby.
“It has no meaning in terms of definition, but it has a great meaning in terms of emotion,” Sparky Reardon, who served as Ole Miss’ dean of students from 2000-14, said.
“Hotty Toddy” is a “hello” and a “goodbye.” It’s a “thank you” on certain days but a war chant in the fall. It’s a greeting among friends and strangers. It’s the conversation starter between people who might not have known they had anything to talk about. It’s a response to life’s twists and turns, both good and bad. Above all else, it unites.
“It’s that spark that brings the two people together,” Reardon said.
‘It baffles and confuses people’
Back in the days when Archie Manning was making a Heisman Trophy push, Jeff Roberson remembers being with his parents at Memphis’ Peabody Hotel the night before an Ole Miss football game. That’s where the Rebels used to hold pep rallies, Roberson remembers fondly. He was 10 or so at the time.
A Baldwyn, Mississippi, native who grew up going to Ole Miss games, Roberson admits he didn’t understand why a gentleman his family knew was yelling “Hotty Toddy” across a hotel lobby. He didn’t know what it meant, either. But that really didn’t matter.
Roberson graduated from Ole Miss in 1983 and covered Rebels athletics for 30 years. Since 2021, he’s worked with Rogers as an archivist and historian for the athletics department — Roberson fondly refers to their office as the “AARP Suite.” He can only laugh when asked about the origins of the “Hotty Toddy” chant.
“Gosh almighty, I don’t know,” Roberson said with a chuckle.
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!
The college sports world is littered with calls and phrases. Auburn fans scream “War Eagle” at the top of their lungs. USC fans acknowledge each other with a simple “Fight On.” Alabama fans yell “Roll Tide” as a greeting and a warning. The difference, however, is that those sayings are part of their respective school’s fight songs.
Kansas fans chant “Rock Chalk, Jayhawk!” and Arkansas Razorbacks will Call the Hogs by offering a “Wooo Pig, Sooie,” without hesitation, despite those words not being part of their songs. Those respective hymns do, however, mention Jayhawks and Razorbacks. Tennessee’s famed Rocky Top — which is not part of the school’s official fight song at all — has actual lyrics with words and phrases. Ole Miss’ fight song, “Forward Rebels,” is 57 words long. Not one of them is “Hotty,” “Toddy” or anything close.
Reardon grew up in Clarksdale, Mississippi; his parents were friends with College Football Hall of Fame member and NFL star Charlie Conerly, who led Ole Miss to a 9-2 record in 1947. Reardon was a student at Ole Miss and worked at the university for 37 years. You didn’t ask where “Hotty Toddy” came from or what it meant. It just was.
“It’s unique, and I think we enjoy saying it, and using it baffles and confuses people,” Reardon said. “I wish I had a nickel for every time somebody (asked) me ‘What the hell is Hotty Toddy?’ “… Sometimes I’ll just tell people it’s a curse and you’re damned.”
Part of the reason “Hotty Toddy” works as a phrase and chant is its simplicity, former Ole Miss football player David Wells posits. Wells is the third member of the so-called AARP Suite and is a special assistant in compliance to the athletics director.
Wells, who is from Kentucky, played wide receiver for the Rebels under Vaught from 1963-65. He played in 1962 as well, but freshmen weren’t allowed to play on the varsity team in those days. During his first fall in Oxford, Wells and his classmates sat in the stands like all the other students and fans, wearing their official Ole Miss beanies to stay warm. Even back then, an announcer yelled “Are you ready?” before the crowd launched into the chorus.
You didn’t have to be an adult to learn the words and scream it at the top of your lungs.
“We were part of the student body yelling,” Wells said. “So that’s how you got indoctrinated. … It wasn’t some long song that you had to memorize, like the school song. And so you knew it real quickly.”
‘A sign of Ole Miss-dom’
On Oct. 31, 1998, J. Stern snuck out of the Vaught-Hemingway Stadium control room — then located under the press box on the ground level — to gauge the reactions from the Ole Miss faithful. What was about to take place on the newly installed stadium Jumbotron wasn’t so much a risk as it was a foray into parts unknown.
In those days, Stern was the sports producer for the campus teleproductions resource center. His duties included the weekly coach’s show with head football coach Tommy Tuberville. Stern, a native of Opelika, Alabama, and an Alabama graduate, understands the importance of tradition in college sports as much as anyone.
When he got to Ole Miss in 1990, Stern knew “Hotty Toddy” was something people said in the same vein as “Roll Tide.” But he slowly learned there was a unique fondness people in the community at-large felt toward it.
There was something comfortable about it. And it was theirs.
“It’s just a sign of Ole Miss-dom,” Stern said.
Prior to the Rebels’ 1998 matchup with LSU, Stern and marketing coordinator for athletics Connie Pierce sat on the balcony at City Grocery, thinking through ways to “do something cool” for what was expected to be the largest on-campus football game in the state’s history. Stern, an unofficial member of the marketing team, and Pierce, a former Ole Miss cheerleader, started spit-balling with a group at happy hour: What if Tuberville, in a prerecorded message, started the “Hotty Toddy” chant for the stadium?
Stern put the video together and prepped for its debut. He left the control room just before Tuberville was shown on screen. When Tuberville appeared to the unsuspecting crowd, silence fell over the crowd. At least momentarily.
Fans then began to roar their beloved battle cry, and a tradition was born.
“We nailed it,” Pierce said. “As soon as (Tuberville) finished the video, before we even got to the stadium, we knew it was going to be a hit. We had no idea there was going to be famous, or the most famous people on earth doing it. But it worked, and they’re still doing it.”
Ole Miss won that game against LSU 37-31 in overtime in front of a record crowd of 50,577. There was one more home game that season — the Egg Bowl — but starting in 1999, each home contest would feature a guest asking the crowd if it was ready for the ensuing chaos.
Stern had a general letter template to send out to prospective celebrities. Were all of them going to respond? Of course not. But, as he figured, everyone knows someone who knows someone.
One of his friends knew a contact for Russell Crowe; he sent in his video — which was spliced with clips from “Gladiator” — from a movie set. Dennis Quaid did his performance while on horseback. Katy Perry sent one in. Even Betty White and Dolly Parton made videos.
Stern says he would have people ask him prior to games who the guest was going to be. He always kept his mouth shut. The surprise factor was worth its weight in Jumbotron panels.
At the beginning, Pierce and her team drove to the celebrities. She remembers driving to a hotel in Nashville to meet with Snoop Dogg to film one. The rapper even filmed a short video for her son, telling him to “stay in school.”
Among the unlikeliest videos came from the international space station. Stern knew an Ole Miss alumni at NASA and threw the offer out there, somewhat as a joke, but also very much in earnest. Eight months later, Stern received a transmission.
“I was on the phone with him, he said, ‘Get ready to eat s—,’ and they rolled it,” Stern remembered with a chuckle. “And it was like, ‘Oh my God, you’re the best.’”
Ole Miss could very well lose a given game, Stern noted. But in those few moments before it started, none of that mattered at Vaught-Hemingway. The Rebels’ faithful had hope. And, above all else, they were together as one with that hope.
“It was something that people could have pride in,” Rogers said. “And it got them totally involved in the stands.”
‘We’re all Rebels’
Ole Miss senior defensive end Jared Ivey is from the Atlanta area. He began his career at Georgia Tech before transferring to Ole Miss prior to the 2022 season. He had heard “Hotty Toddy” before but, like many, didn’t give much thought to what it meant or where it came from, though he has heard the Virginia Tech/Highty-Tighties tale.
Now that he’s entering his third season with the Rebels, he still doesn’t have any clearer notion of what it means or where it comes from. But he can tell you exactly what it means to him.
“To me it’s like, we’re behind you. From the fans, from the community, we’re behind you. We’re rallying behind you,” Ivey said. “… I shop a lot at Sam’s Club in Memphis and I’ll still hear it if I have some Ole Miss stuff on. … I just think it means family and just kind of that togetherness.”
Everyone seems to have their own Hotty Toddy story, a random place or time someone has said it to them or has said it themselves.
Rogers fondly recalls a situation with one of his friends, photographer Bill Frakes, who took pictures for Sports Illustrated for years and briefly attended law school at Ole Miss. Frakes was covering the 2009 IAAF World Championships in Germany, where Olympic gold-medal winning long jumper and former Rebel Brittney Reese competed. Frakes was at the end of the pit where Reese jumped, wearing a Manning Passing Academy shirt. After a particularly noteworthy jump, Frakes let one slip. Reese smiled back.
“She comes up out of the pit and suddenly Bill says, ‘Hotty Toddy!’ And she looks around,” Rogers said with a hearty laugh.
Reardon says he once got a hearty “Hotty Toddy” outside of Florence, Italy, from students who happened to be abroad. When Pierce visited the Eiffel Tower in France, she filmed a video outside the landmark with her friends, singing the chant in full force. Why? Because that’s what Ole Miss people do.
“If you ask 10 people out there, they all know the ‘Hotty Toddy’ but maybe two of them know the words to the fight song,” Pierce said. “ … It’s our thing, you know? It draws us together. We’re more than just a bunch of people at a football stadium. We’re all Rebels.”
Stern, who later became the Rebels’ assistant athletic director for sports productions, retired from his job at Ole Miss in 2013. He still follows the Rebels religiously from his home in Alabama. He takes pride in what he and Pierce and the rest of their team were able to accomplish; they created a tradition that is still going strong. The power of “Hotty Toddy” was there before the Jumbotron, Stern notes. But to be able to expand it and have fans look forward to a surprise on game day was special in its own right.
Yes, Stern still gets people in Alabama asking him what “Hotty Toddy” means. He doesn’t have an answer so much as he does a philosophy. And he’s happy to stick to it.
“They’ve always said, ‘What the hell is Hotty Toddy?’” Stern said. “I said ‘What the hell is ‘War Eagle?’ What the hell is ‘Roll Tide?’ What the hell is ‘Ramma Jamma Yellow Hamma?’ It’s what we say. … and they love it more than you love yours.
“ … And the best thing is, nobody knows what the hell it really, really means. And that’s what the beauty of it is.”
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