To me, being Ramatized means feeling, igniting or re-igniting the spirit and pride of WSSU. It means being reminded that you are a part of a special group of people— The WSSU Rams Nation! It’s a WSSU State of Mind; a Rams State of Being. When you are Ramatized, you are true to our school’s motto: Enter to Learn … Depart to Serve.
WHAT DOES IT MEAN
to be
“Ramatized” Students, faculty, staff and alumni search for a way to describe the feeling.
When someone has been Ramatized, they have WSSU school spirit, pride and loyalty; they support WSSU financially and by attendance at events, athletics, and special occasions. While not hiding the negative, they find and share the positive about WSSU; they reach out to colleagues, alumni and friends to invite/encourage involvement with and support of WSSU.
Any time you see someone starting the moves to our FIGHT SONG “GET UP SU GET UP” you definitely know that they’ve been Ramatized! Being Ramatized is when someone asks you if you attended WSSU and you sing your response … “And I’ll be a Ram till I die! Oh ohhh ohhhhh oh oh ohhhh … So hard to be a Ram!” It’s contagious! It’s contagious!
It’s hearing the WSSU band, hearing the talent of the illustrious University Choir, and gaining a personal sense of pride for being a part of the WSSU family in your own way—it can be through academics, joining an organization, or just being a student that loves the RamShack.
You are part of the rich ancestry and the fabric of this great institution. You have embraced the Ram Motto and accepted the charge to sustain and promote the university and make it better for generations to come.
of Winston-Salem State University A1892-1995,” Winston-Salem Teachers
ccording to the book, “The History
The origin of the
WSSU Mascot
College (WSTC) initiated its physical training program during the 1922-1923 academic year, under the direction of Clarence W. Davis. A. Bernice Miller of Hampton Institute was hired to become the first full-time director of the women’s health and physical education program at WSTC in 1929. The men’s program was slow to develop because the enrollment of men was “too small to field many activities.” In 1932, three freshmen, William Roscoe Anderson, Jr., (a member of the very first basketball team 1933-1934) and a couple of his classmates asked if they could have a men’s program. (This information comes from his memory, photos and articles still in his possession from those days.) Rupert Bell (deceased) and Jesse B. Eggleton, Jr. (deceased) approached President Dr. Simon Green Atkins about establishing an athletics program at the college. According to Anderson, Dr. Atkins, being a devoutly religious man, was at first not inclined to give his approval. Anderson says their persistence paid off, and Dr. Atkins did give his approval. Anderson, Bell, and Eggleton were joined by Walter Gray, James T. Diggs, Jr., Robert Schooler, Robert Scales, Belvedere Cook, Theodore Hayes, Theodore Staplefoote, and James Boyd, to make up WSTC’s very first basketball team or any other sports team.
How the Ram came to be our mascot According to a photo circa early 1930s in Anderson’s possession, an inscription on the back reads in part: “Theodore Hayes named the team ‘The Rams.’” That’s where the mascot came from. So when WSTC affiliated with its first athletic conference, the Eastern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (EIAC), we were “The Rams.” Football was added to the
and how it got its name By Rudy Anderson
athletics program in 1942. WSTC applied for admission to the CIAA the same year and was admitted to the CIAA in 1946. How did the name “Amon” come to be? Here’s the short version: In 1978, Paul Kuhl, then the Sports Information Officer for Winston-Salem State University and currently a history professor, ran a mascot naming contest on campus and throughout the community. Names were collected in a shoe box circulated on campus and at games.
The name selected by Kuhl and coach Tiny Wallace was “Amon.” The name was inspired by the West African deity Amon, which was always represented as a ram. The ancient Egyptians included the deity Amon in their pantheon of gods and greeted conquering Pharoahs as “Sons of Amon.”
The story behind the contest … Well as the story goes, Cleo Hyman (a black man from Pfafftown, N.C.) was a huge fan of the Rams back in the late 1970s when Coach Bill Hayes was head football coach. His wife, Shirley Hyman, worked in the Financial Aid Office. He apparently said to Coach Hayes one day that “The Rams” needed a real mascot. Hayes told him that he didn’t know where to get one. Hyman, who had a little farm in Pfafftown, told Hayes that he had one. Coach and Athletics Director Clarence “Big House” Gaines, who wanted nothing to do with the naming process, had Coach Hayes to have Paul Kuhl, the Sports Information Officer for WSSU, and Coach Cleo “Tiny” Wallace to come up with a plan to name the ram. They did—a campus-wide and community-wide naming contest. The day they were to select the name, they discovered they had a real problem— many of the names thrown into the shoe box they were passing around on campus and at games turned out to be pretty bad. Kuhl, who was also a professor of history, had just finished doing research on African history and had come across the name Amon. He shared the name and its history with Coach Gaines and Coach Wallace. Kuhl says Coach Gaines just looked at him, reminded him that this naming business was going to a problem, and walked away. Kuhl says after Coach Gaines left, Coach Wallace stuck his hand back into the box and, guess what? Out came the name Amon. And the rest as they say is, well, history.
ARCHWAY
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