Mount Allison sings!
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- Cheers & yells
- Audio recordings of Mount Allison Choral Society
Cheers & Yells
Since at least 1892, Mount Allison students had been yelling out cheers in support of their home team. The first recorded college yell appeared in The Argosy (October 1892):
"Up-up-up,
On-on-on
Mot-to-of Al-li-son!"
By 1904, students at the Ladies' College began to lament that they did not have a distinctive yell. An article in the Ladies' College student journal, Allisonia (January 1904), explained:
"As yet the Ladies' College girls have no songs or cries as distinguished from the regular Mount Allison yell. It is true the basket-ball girls give an occasional cheer at their contests, but this is of a promiscuous nature, not a definite or adopted one. To the uninitiated the jargon does not suggest either rhyme or reason, but when glibly rattled off by a crowd of true enthusiasts the magic of its power to rouse class and college feeling to fever heat is revealed."
The following account in The Allisonia (November 1911), of the 1911 championship rugby football match between Acadia and Mount Allison, also provides a glimpse into the important role songs and cheers played in raising crowd and team spirit:
"The great masses, however, are college students, eager, excited, jubilant rooters, sending back and forth over the campus, their songs of anticipated victory, making the cool air ring with the yells intended to inspire the men of the grid-iron."
Cushion cover, with Mount Allison cheer, s.d.
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