Rameses XVII, the eight-year-old, blue-horned ram that led the University of North Carolina football team onto the field, died last Thursday of complications from an injury he suffered in an encounter with his own son.

His son Pablo, 3, will now become the new university mascot, Rameses XVIII.

Rameses -- both father and son -- lived on a farm outside Carrboro, N.C., where, according to keeper Rob Hogan they butted heads on April 13.

It's common ram behavior, but this collision was so hard that it snapped off one of the older ram's horns.

"I've never had that happen out here," said Hogan, according to an article in the Raleigh News & Observer. "I think they were just tussling, and they must have somehow hit it in just the wrong place."

Hogan's family has been caring for UNC's ram mascots since 1924 when the tradition was started by a cheerleader who came up with the idea of naming a mascot after a popular football player of the time, Jack Merritt, nicknamed "The Battering Ram."

"It goes back four generations to my great-granddad," Hogan said. After his great-grandfather, was killed by a bull two years later, Hogan's grandfather stepped up to carry on the tradition.

Hogan treated Rameses XVII -- who accompanied the team onto the field for five years -- with antibiotics after the injury.

"On Thursday I got up before daybreak and went out to check on him, and he was doing worse," Hogan said. "It was obvious he wasn't going to make it." Hogan summoned a vet to put the animal down, but before the vet could arrive Rameses died.

"With livestock, it's purely business," said Hogan, who raises beef cattle. "But with the rams, it's different. It's just like losing a dog you've had for 10 years."

(Photo courtesy of Hogan's Magnolia View Farm)