Swine Flu Alert

The H1N1 virus is a serious threat. The World Health Organization raised the pandemic level to 5 a couple of months back, which basically meant that it was spreading from country to country.

The company I work for has taken the H1N1 threat very seriously. We have put into place contingency plans “just in case” the pandemic becomes a problem.

But let’s be honest. The H1N1 flu hasn’t been as fatal as first thought. In fact, more people are dying in this country from the REGULAR flu strain than from H1N1.

Of course, autumn isn’t here yet, and that’s when flu season really begins.

Which begs the question….when all of us tailgater, road-tripper, football fans gather in large stadiums this fall….will we be subjecting ourselves to the H1N1 flu? I don’t know.

But Ole Miss sure seems to be concerned about it.

In a press release from their Althletic Department, Ole Miss has reacted quite strangely to the H1N1 threat. Here is the release and I quote: OXFORD, Miss. - In an abundance of caution regarding the potential exposure of various flu strains, Ole Miss officials announced Tuesday that Saturday's planned "Meet the Rebels Day" has been cancelled for this year.
"After consultation with our team physicians and Coach Houston Nutt, we felt it was in the best interest of our football team to cancel this year's 'Meet the Rebels Day'," said Ole Miss Athletics Director Pete Boone.
"While we may be over cautious regarding the flu, our season opener is less than three weeks away and we can't take any chances," Nutt said. "We certainly regret not being able to interact with our fans at this time."

I gotta tell you, I don't know if I have ever seen anything quite like this. I was TOTALLY taken back by this announcement from the Rebel Athletic Department.

But after thinking about it a while, I finally understood.

You see, H1N1 is also known as……SWINE FLU.

The Reverend Head Coach Houston Nutt has tried very hard at Ole Miss to distance himself from his days at Arkansas as the Head Boar Hog. He won't even use the name "Arkansas" around Oxford...only calling it "that school." And it makes perfect sense that he wouldn’t want anything swine related around his current football program. They are a pre-season top ten pick, are coming off a great year last year, had a very good recruiting year, and some say will contend for the SEC West championship. Why would he want to upset his apple cart over H1N1?

After all, you could say it was “swine flu” that got him run off from Arkansas.

WJLaneSR