WHERE IS IT?

IS

It’s fun being an Atlanta Rabbit. That’s the mascot for Atlanta’s school system. It’s fun because hardly any other town or school has such a mascot. So, here’s the Where Is It? mystery for this week. Where did we get — and how did we become — the Atlanta Rabbits? Did you know we were once the Atlanta Wolves? There are rabbits all over town. Everywhere you look. Here are five little rabbit pictures accompanying this mystery that the photographer noticed. So … how did we become rabbits?

ANSWER

It’s back in the 1920s. Ed Rabb was a lawyer from Rains who had come to Atlanta upon marrying Faye Marie King from here. The two had met while she was a student at SMU.

Rabb became well-respected while here. It would be said he was beloved by the town. He had a distinguished background that included service in both World War I and II. He organized and was the first captain of Atlanta’s National Guard Unit. He organized the city’s first Boy Scout troop in 1925. He introduced Charolais cattle to the county, and in 1958 was named the outstanding Soil Conservation Service participant in Texas.

He practiced law for 50 years and was Atlanta’s city attorney. He notched a 35-year perfect attendance record as a Rotarian. He died at 82 in 1975. At his funeral in Pinecrest Cemetery here, members of Atlanta’s first football team and its present one that year were pallbearers.

The football team mentioned above is important. For before 1920 when Rabb arrived, Atlanta did not have a football team. Citizen Rabb organized one for anyone who wished to play.

In 1924, four years into his coaching career at Atlanta High School as well as being principal there, Ed Rabb still looked as if he could have played on the team himself. But this was to be his last year. He left as coach to do the same at Texarkana College. That year, the team voted to call itself “Rabb-its” in his honor. Thus, Ed Rabb was the original Atlanta Rabbit in this manner.

For such reasons as this, the true Atlanta Rabbit is a respectable bunny. Maybe just a bit rascally at times. He’s an academic and athletic rabbit.

Now, a bit more detail on those first football Rabbits. Few had played the game or seen one. Some of the first players were public school dropouts. They were rough necks who enjoyed the sport.

They were called the Wolves and played teams from Texarkana, Arkansas and Vivian, Louisiana. Once they even went up against Centenary College, then a powerhouse. When the Wolves began to win a few games, they became popular.

It was a colorful time, and Ed Rabb’s teams in their purple and gold colors were continual, colorful winners. So much so, that in 1925, Texarkana College wanted Coach Rabb for their football program.

When, at the end of that fourth season, he told the team he was leaving, the team decided to hold a meeting. They determined to name themselves “Rabb-its” because of their respect and admiration for their coach.

They even decided to have a letter sweater with a rabbit jumping through a large “A” on it. But the colors didn’t seem right. The team voted on maroon and white, and that’s how it is today.

These memories of the first Atlanta Rabbits were from the late Russell Pynes who was interviewed in a 1992 oral history project of Atlanta High School. Student Byran Waid interviewed Pynes who had actually been a player on Rabb’s 1923 team.

“Almost everyone went out for the team,” Pynes said at the time. “I was a freshman at 103 pounds, and I went out. I guess that proves it.”