By Oliver Thomas, Staff Writer

A small town in Tennessee has become the unlikely new home of a group of mini-musketeers. This past November, Cheatham Middle School (CMS) in Tennessee received a concerning email after the University of Cincinnati (UC) sent a cease-and-desist letter regarding the use of their name, colors and mascot.

Cheatham Middle School, located about 25 miles outside of Nashville, held the Bearcats’ colors of red, black and white as well as its mascot and logo since its opening in 1998.

Even with UC threatening legal action, Cheatham Athletic Director Jeff Hobbs did everything he could do to keep the Bearcat as the school’s mascot. He proposed that they would create a new and unique logo while keeping the Bearcat as the school mascot, as it had become an integral part of the school’s identity. 

“We had reached the point where we had kids who were having kids that were coming here to be Bearcats, and we wanted to keep that,” Hobbs said.

However, UC was not willing to let CMS keep the Bearcats as their mascot. This led to a complete rebrand for Cheatham Middle School. The news quickly went viral, and it caught the attention of Xavier fans around the country. 

 “There was a lot of movement and posts from former Xavier basketball players and fans, as they had picked up on it,” Hobbs said. He would go on to praise Xavier fans for quickly getting involved in the story and using it to poke fun at their rival. 

“I appreciated the pettiness of the rivalry, and how wonderfully petty it can be. That’s what sports are about,” Hobbs said. 

The story had become so popular that it reached Xavier alumnus, Anthony Breen. Breen and his company Synergistic LLC reached out to Hobbs and CMS to offer to cover all the costs of rebranding if they rebranded to be the Cheatham Middle School Musketeers. 

The CMS community quickly latched onto the idea and Hobbs said that there was an uproar amongst the student body when the idea spread around the school. After multiple rounds of surveys to see what the public wanted as their mascot, the Musketeers ended up winning by a landslide.

While becoming the Musketeers, CMS also adopted Xavier’s ideology. 

“At its heart, the message that it sends across is what matters most. What better message for that group of kids than ‘All for One, One for All?’ That’s what we teach them. To be the person that stands up for the masses, when one person is struggling, the masses stand up for them,” Hobbs said.

Once the mascot and logo were officially implemented, a seed was planted for a whole new group of Xavier fans. 

“It was amazing how a small rural country town became the biggest Xavier fans,” Hobbs said. “Kids are walking around in Xavier t-shirts and talking about the basketball games. Before this, 95% of people at Cheatham Middle School didn’t know what Xavier was, and now, our whole community does. On selection Sunday when Xavier got in the tournament, we celebrated like we were from Cincinnati.”

This whole situation goes far beyond rivalry. “(It was a) heartwarming moment, as a town that no one knew about was now on national television. Everyone for a moment knew where Cheatham, Tenn. was,” Hobbs said. The change from the Bearcats to Musketeers symbolizes a new future and identity for Cheatham Middle School as they adapt the All for One, One for All mantra.