“I look forward to working with (education leaders and elected officials) because this is our state, this is our home, and we want to see it continually improve,” he said. “What could be a greater gift to a native son?”
Speaking to reporters via Zoom, Taylor discussed a range of topics:
Initial priorities: He wants to get to know the staff at the Mississippi Department of Education and meet local superintendents across the state to understand their districts’ strengths and weaknesses.
Critical race theory: Taylor said critical race theory is not taught in public schools. He understands it to be a legal theory, and that it would be inaccurate to say that he supports it. “I’ve had to say to myself, ‘I’m an educated man, but I’m afraid I can’t speak intelligently about what critical race theory is,’” as it does not relate to his work. It is the responsibility of schools to help students become critical thinkers, but not to push them in any particular direction, he said.
The teacher shortage: Teacher shortages and investing in quality teachers are some of the major challenges facing the state, he said. He named solutions, including building relationships with teacher training programs at universities, alternate licensing programs, and more work with local administrations regarding how they supervise teachers. He also discussed creating supports to help teachers stay in the classroom.
Continue and expand Mississippi’s progress in literacy work.
Work with the statehouse: He wants MDE to partner with the Legislature to help inform the bills lawmakers create based on what data and research show are successful.
A continuous school year: When specifically asked about moving to a year-round school schedule, something Lt. Gov. Delbert Hoseman has voiced support for, Taylor said the research shows that year-round schooling is beneficial and would support a proposal of this type.
Parental involvement: Taylor believes parentsshould have a strong voice in public education. He said he knows they want the best for their children and wants them to feel heard and like they can trust their schools. He sees it as his duty to make the experience of education the best that it can be for students and teachers across the state.
Moving back home: He plans to live in the metro Jackson area, but hopes to get some land where he can dig in the dirt and enjoy the outdoors. He also owns land in Greene County with his brothers where they hunt.
Representation: “I hope that for students of color, they see that they have the opportunity to rise to a position such as this. I would certainly like to think that I was not selected because of my color but because of my body of work. I do recognize that there are a lot of young Black boys and young Black girls who see themself in me, but I would ask them to not only see themselves in me but in everyone that they come across because that’s certainly what happened to me.”
Taylor will start in his new role in January of 2023, pending confirmation by the state senate.
Almost a year has passed since Harlene Blair of McHenry last saw her 21-year-old son Eli Marrero, alive. Now she wonders if she’ll ever find out why he died in law enforcement custody.
Blair told MCIR she was told her son was found hanging from a light fixture in his solitary confinement cell in the Stone County Correctional Facility on Jan. 29, 2022 — five months before his 22nd birthday.
Blair said her son’s case hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves from the investigators or the media. “I’m kind of afraid the police will mess with me if my name is printed, but I don’t care. I’ve called everybody from the TV stations and the newspapers all the way to the governor,” Blair said. “I’ve called fifty law firms — all of them said they’d have a conflict of interest since they have to work with police.”
Blair said her son was arrested at her home after Thanksgiving in 2021 for not reporting to his probation officer in relation to stealing a car. Blair said the car belonged to Marrero’s cousin, and Marrero’s defense was that he thought he had permission to drive it. Blair said she saw papers Marrero had received after his release, and she saw no mention of needing to report to anyone. She said her questions to the sheriff at his arrest were rebuffed.
“I asked them for the paperwork with the warrant, and they wouldn’t give me anything, and they wouldn’t let me hug him goodbye,” Blair said.
The sheriff would not respond to questions for comment.
Eli Marrero, diagnosed with Schizophrenia when he was 16, was 21 when he was discovered hanging in his Stone County jail cell on Jan. 28, 2022. Credit: Photo courtesy of Harlene Blair
Marrero suffered from schizophrenia, diagnosed at age 16. Blair said he received treatment at Gulf Coast Mental Health Center in Wiggins. She said she did not think Marrero was medicated while he was in jail, even though she said she told the sheriff’s department he needed his medication when they came to arrest him. “They sent two cop cars to come get him,” she said.
Attorney David Sullivan of Gulfport, who was Marrero’s public defender on the car theft charge, told MCIR that he didn’t understand why Marrero would have been arrested in the first place for not reporting to his probation officer. He said that in cases like that, police usually arrest a person as they encounter them in the community — not going out of their way to find him at home.
And even if he were sentenced on the charge, Marrero might have been credited with time served or even have gotten a second chance from the judge, Sullivan said. “He wasn’t looking at years in prison. He did that time because he couldn’t afford to bond out. He would have been parole-eligible anyway.”
He said Marrero was not entitled to a public defender for a probation violation charge so he was no longer involved in the young man’s defense.
Jail suicides on the rise
Jail suicides are becoming more common — 340 persons in state and federal prisons and 355 in local jails died by suicide in 2019, based on the most recent mortality data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. The number of suicides in local jails increased 5% from 2018 to 2019, while suicides in state and federal prisons remained stable.
Suicides accounted for almost a third of deaths in local jails and 8% of deaths in state and federal prisons in 2019, according to the BJS. Nearly a fifth of the nation’s 1,161 state and federal prisons and a tenth of the 2,845 local jails had at least one suicide in 2019.
Over the 20-year period from 2000 to 2019, more than 6,200 local jail inmates died by suicide while in custody. Suicide deaths among jail inmates increased 13% over the period. Those who died by suicide were most often male, non-Hispanic white, incarcerated for a violent crime and died by self-strangulation.
More than three-quarters of jail inmates who died by suicide from 2000 to 2019 had not been convicted and were awaiting adjudication of their charge, according to the report.
The Mississippi Department of Mental Health is trying to get a handle on just how many prisoners in jails are battling mental illness, said Dr. Tom Recore, the head of forensic services for Mississippi since April 2022.
The department recently completed a year-long longitudinal study of just how long it takes for a mentally ill inmate to be ordered to have a competency hearing. The figures were stunning: inmates spent an average of 555 days in jail from the alleged offense until a judge ordered they be evaluated to see if they were competent to stand trial.
“The averages are high because of a handful of counties,” Recore explained.
Once the order was sent, it typically took another 191 days to process an inmate through a competency hearing, an evaluation period, and an order of noncompetency being entered. That amounted to 748 days — a little more than two years — according to the study.
Some of those inmates had been indicted for their crimes, and some had not — depending on when their cases were presented to a grand jury, which is the responsibility of the county, Recore noted.
One of the reasons that the first waiting period is so long is the inmates’ attorneys typically have to request a competency hearing, and Mississippi does not have a full-time public defender system in place. In Stone County, most public defenders are private attorneys from the Coast who do the work for $500 per inmate, Sullivan noted.
The Office of the State Public Defender was established in 2011 to unite various state agencies providing public defense under one umbrella and to develop proposals for a statewide public defender system. It issued its final report in 2018 to the Legislature, outlining a proposal for a statewide public defender system. The office’s annual report in 2021 shows that implementation of the proposals is not complete, with the office proposing three pilot programs, one in each Supreme Court district, to be presented to the Legislature next year.
House Bill 360 to provide funding for these pilot programs passed the House in 2022 and died in the Senate Judiciary B Committee on March 1, 2022, according to the bill status website. The OPD’s 2022 annual report noted that efforts will be made to pass this pilot program in 2023.
Eli Marrero racked up multiple incident reports in the Stone County Correctional Facility c prior to his suicide on Jan. 28, 2022. Credit: John Fitzhugh/MCIR
A troubled man and problematic inmate
The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, which has oversight over inmate deaths in the state, is investigating Marrero’s death. Because the investigation is ongoing, records of the case are unavailable under the state’s Open Records Act, according to Robert E. Wentworth, staff officer in Mississippi Department of Public Safety’s legal division.
But arrest records and incident reports obtained by MCIR paint a picture of a troubled man who became a problematic inmate.
According to his Dec. 2, 2021, interview, Marrero told booking officer Vickie Clark that he suffered from mental illness but did not receive treatment for it. He also said he had received treatment for substance abuse in the past, although it was not clear from those records where he received such treatment. His brief mental status exam at that time was deemed within normal limits.
During previous jail stays, Marrero had other incident reports — once for attempting to exit the jail through the fire escape door on the bay back to his lockdown cell after a court date in April 2021. Cpl. Aaron Lumpkin noted Marrero said God told him to go outside instead of to his cell. Attempts to get him into his cell resulted in an altercation between Lumpkin and Marrero, with two correctional officers assisting Lumpkin in getting Marrero into cell 135A, noted on Marrero’s transfer papers as a “suicide cell.”
Less than a month later, Marrero was the center of a multiple-inmate verbal altercation where other offenders accused Marrero of using racial slurs and of walking in on them during showers. As a result, Marrero was placed on lockdown without contact with any other prisoners, per Lumpkin’s report on the incident, or his mother.
On July 29, 2021, Marrero flooded his cell and other areas of the jail with “toilet water,” according to the report. He would not leave his cell when told to do so, resulting in Capt. Eddie Rogers, chief of security at Stone County Correctional Facility, spraying him with a one-second burst of pepper spray and a brief scuffle between them to get Marrero out of his cell, with six other officers in attendance, according to Lumpkin’s incident report.
Marrero lashed out at a particular inmate during his jail stays, identified in the records as Octavian Stanley — first on July 20, 2021, with the two shouting threats at each other, then, according to an affidavit filed on Dec. 29, 2021, alleging Marrero had jumped Stanley from behind and hit him in the head. An incident report from that day corroborates that Marrero had attacked Stanley while the inmate was cuffed. The scuffle resulted in a decision that the two should not be out of their cells at the same time for any reason.
Three days before his death on Jan. 25, 2022, Marrero was also written up for attempting to assault an officer. The officer noted that Marrero swung his handcuffed fists at the officer’s face. The officer blocked his swing and shoved him into his cell. According to the incident report, two other correctional officers witnessed the assault.
Blair confirmed Marrero, as a teenager, stayed in trouble at school because of problems with attention deficit disorder and got his GED after dropping out.
An April 24, 2017, article in the Biloxi Sun Herald quotes Capt. Ray Boggs as saying Marrero escaped from youth court after a hearing, possibly running off with his girlfriend who had a car waiting outside the building, injuring Chief Deputy Phyllis Olds.
‘This is not the place they need to be’
Marrero’s autopsy dated Feb. 1, 2022, which MCIR obtained from Blair, was signed by State Medical Examiner Dr. Staci Turner. It found ligature markings on Marrero’s neck, partially encircling it, which the examiner found consistent with the history given that Marrero had been found hanging in his cell. No spinal cord injury was present, nor was there any substances found in his body per the toxicology report. All other organs were normal with no evidence of natural disease.
Stone County Coroner Wayne Flurry said he was called to Memorial Hospital in Stone County, where Marrero had been taken in an effort to revive him. Flurry said he was told Marrero had been found hanging from a light fixture in his cell. Since Marrero had died in jail, the case was referred to MBI to investigate, and Marrero’s body was sent to the state Crime Lab for autopsy. “I referred it to the State Medical Examiner because all I had to go on was what I had been told,” Flurry said. “I did not go to the jail.”
Marrero’s case is not the first time Stone County Sheriff’s Department has been investigated for how it handled the mentally ill. In June 2019, Pablo de la Cruz, then a sheriff’s K-9 deputy, resigned amid an investigation into the alleged mistreatment of a mentally ill man picked up on a court order related to his health.
Blair said not knowing what exactly happened to her son was the most difficult part about his death. “Nobody would tell me anything,” she said. “Every time I asked why he was in solitary confinement, they said he’s not fit for general population.”
Rogers said it was known throughout the jail and the community that Marrero had problems. “One minute he was fine, the next minute you were like, what are you even saying? It would sound like he was speaking in Arabic,” Rogers said.
“It’s a sad situation,” Rogers said. “This is not the place they need to be. But I don’t know if Mississippi is ever going to do anything about it.”
Recore said the state is attempting to build a new system of services that quickly identifies mentally ill individuals in the prison system, gets them evaluated for competency, and gets them the necessary treatment they need to be restored to competency if possible — or kept in the least restrictive environment available if that’s not possible.
Blair said she feels like some simple measures could have kept her son alive. “I would like them to take the bedsheets out of solitary confinement and to keep a better eye on the people in there,” she said, noting her son should have been checked on every 30 minutes or so if he was at risk for suicide.
Wendy Bailey, executive director at the Department of Mental Health, said the state is attempting to provide a continuum of care with two pilot programs based out of Region 8 Mental Health in Brandon and Region 12 Pine Belt Mental Health to connect inmates with medical treatment earlier in their confinement.
She said anyone who is concerned with the mental health of inmates should familiarize themselves with these new programs. “If you have everybody at the table, all the advocates for care, we can create a system that Mississippi can be proud of,” Bailey said.
This story was produced by the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting, a nonprofit news organization that is exposing wrongdoing, educating and empowering Mississippians, and raising up the next generation of investigative reporters. Sign up for our newsletter.
Email Julie Whitehead at julie.whitehead.mcir@gmail.com.
Mississippi Today’s Adam Ganucheau and Geoff Pender analyze Speaker of the House Philip Gunn’s decision to step down and not seek reelection to the House. Among topics they discuss: What will this decision mean for the 2023 legislative session, what is Gunn’s legacy, who may replace him, and what will he do next?
Since the United States Supreme Court in a Mississippi case stripped away a national right to an abortion, citizens in six states, including five earlier this month, have voted to either preserve or expand abortion rights.
In no state have voters opted to restrict or to take away abortion rights since the Mississippi case – Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization – was decided in late June by the nation’s highest court.
An argument can be made that Mississippians, like voters in conservative states such as Kansas and Kentucky and liberal states like California and Vermont, should be allowed to vote on whether they support or oppose restricting abortion rights.
After all, Mississippi is an unmitigated mess when it comes to the issue of abortion even though it is the state that successfully brought the lawsuit that led to the overturning of the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that guaranteed a national right to an abortion. It is true that there are no abortion clinics in Mississippi, but it reasonably could be argued that abortion is indeed legal in the Magnolia State.
The state has two abortion laws on the books. They are:
A ban on all abortion except in the case of rape or to preserve the life of the mother.
A six-week ban except in cases of medical emergency.
But the Mississippi Supreme Court – in Pro Choice Mississippi v. Fordice – ruled in 1998 that the state constitution provides a right to an abortion.
“We find that the state constitutional right to privacy includes an implied right to choose whether or not to have an abortion,” the late Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Michael Sullivan wrote for the majority.
That ruling has never been overturned.
In the normal judicial process, the laws passed by the Legislature imposing the abortion bans would not trump the ruling of the Supreme Court. What appears to have occurred is that the Supreme Court ruling has been rendered moot since the only abortion provider moved out of the state – fearing its employees could face punishment (possible prison time) in conservative Mississippi even though the state’s highest court said that a right to an abortion exists. In other words, there is no abortion provider in the state to challenge the constitutionality of the two laws banning abortion.
Recognizing the state’s conundrum, the conservative Mississippi Justice Institute, which is the legal arm of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy, recently filed a lawsuit, hoping to get the state Supreme Court to overturn its 1998 ruling.
At the very least, the issue of abortion is still murky in Mississippi. The Mississippi Justice Institute recognizes this.
“In the Dobbs case, Mississippi secured a major victory for human rights and the rule of law,” said Aaron Rice, director of the Mississippi Justice Institute “Now it’s time to finish the job and protect the right to life in the state that took Roe down.”
The lawsuit filed by the Mississippi Justice Institute is asking the Supreme Court to reverse the 1998 ruling in Fordice v. Planned Parenthood just as the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the Roe v. Wade decision.
The Justice Institute filed the lawsuit on behalf of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists. According to the lawsuit, the Michigan-based group has more than 6,000 members nationwide, including 35 in Mississippi. The lawsuit said its members are being placed in legal jeopardy because abortion has been banned under the two aforementioned laws. But based on the 1998 state Supreme Court ruling, doctors could be placed in legal jeopardy if they refuse to refer a woman to an abortion provider, the lawsuit alleges.
Whether that circuitous argument is enough to give the Michigan group “standing” to pursue such a case in Mississippi remains to be seen. The lawsuit is filed in Hinds County Chancery Court.
No doubt, abortion providers would have “standing” to bring the case and in fact did this past summer. But the Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which originally filed a lawsuit, opted to move out of state and drop the case when the state Supreme Court refused to hear the issue in an expedited manner. The decision not to pursue the case meant the Supreme Court was never given a chance to reverse its 1998 ruling. It is likely the current justices would reverse the ruling if given the opportunity.
Thus far no abortion provider has sought to intervene in the case brought by the anti-abortion group.
The Mississippi Legislature could settle this complex issue easily by voting early in the 2023 session to place on the ballot as soon as possible a proposal to reverse the state Supreme Court decision granting the right to an abortion.
Then the citizens could decide just as they have in six other states.
Ole Miss has reportedly offered Lane Kiffin more than nine million bucks a year to remain at the school and coach its football team.
My question: Why?
Rick Cleveland
Kiffin’s team just finished its regular season Thanksgiving night, losing four of its last five games, including a 24-22 defeat to Mississippi State in the Egg Bowl.
In three seasons at Oxford, Kiffin now has a a 23-12 record overall. His teams have won 14, lost 11 SEC games.
For that, Ole Miss wants to reward Kiffin with $9 million-plus per annum, nearly $40 million over the next four years to keep him from taking the Auburn job. What’s more, Ole Miss has raised in excess of $10 million for Kiffin – or the next Rebel coach – to buy players in the transfer portal. Like the old saying goes, pretty soon we are going to be talking about some real money.
Which brings to mind: What would John Vaught, winner of six Southeastern Conference championships at Ole Miss, be worth on today’s market? Is there that much money in Mississippi?
Interestingly, Kiffin has never stayed at a job – any job – for four seasons. If he were to coach half of the 2023 season at Ole Miss, that would be the longest tenure of his career. The Oakland Raiders fired him in his second season after he won 25 percent of his games. Then, after one season, he left Tennessee in the middle of the night, amid something close to a riot, after losing the Chick-fil-A Bowl and finishing one game above .500. Next, Southern Cal fired him on an airport tarmac, returning from a road trip after the fifth game of his fourth season. He spent three seasons as Nick Saban’s offensive coordinator at Alabama, successfully revamping the Crimson Tide offense before taking head coach’s job at Florida Atlantic. He was supposed to coach the Bama offense through the national championship game that third season, but Saban decided, “Thanks, but no thanks. See ya.”
He spent three seasons at FAU before taking the Ole Miss job. At Ole Miss, he has gone 5-5, 10-3 and 8-4, while flirting with other jobs all the while. You could make the case – and many have – Kiffin’s current Rebels’ late season demise was at least partly caused by the distraction of Kiffin’s dalliance with Auburn.
One guy could have stopped that. Lane Kiffin. He did not. He could have signed the papers on the $9 million Ole Miss offer. He could have said, “I am going to finish the job at Ole Miss. I am going to be the first coach to take Ole Miss to Atlanta for the SEC Championship game. We are going to compete for the national championship.”
Instead, he left his employer and his players on the hook.
Here’s my take: Kiffin is a remarkable offensive football mind. He can take his offensive O’s and most times beat your defensive X’s. But as a head coach, his record is far from remarkable. Indeed, it is spotty and hardly worthy of him becoming one of the three or four highest paid coaches in the country.
When he took the job at Ole Miss, Kiffin said he had learned from his previous jobs. He projected himself as a more mature, more stable, more complete coach.
Has he been that?
No. At 47, Kiffin appears the same guy, the same coach, he has always been. If he stays at Ole Miss, it’s likely the Rebels will endure the same situation next November.
The head of the Ole Miss-affiliated NIL collective says the organization has topped the $10 million mark — among the highest reported levels of “name, image and likeness” funding in the nation.
The update from the Grove Collective, the organization collecting funds to distribute to Ole Miss athletes, comes as Rebels head football coach Lane Kiffin decides whether he’ll stay at Ole Miss or leave for SEC divisional rival Auburn, as has been reported in recent days.
Availability of NIL funds has emerged as perhaps the most important factor to college athletes and coaches since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2021 that players could be compensated for their likenesses. These funds are raised by collectives and used to pay college athletes for corporate sponsorships.
“We set a goal to reach the $10 million mark by the end of 2023. We reached it this week,” Grove Collective executive director Walker Jones told Mississippi Today on Wednesday. “I think that stacks up head-to-head with most of the other schools in our conference and most in the nation.”
The NIL news could become a major factor in the days ahead in Oxford, where major donors are preparing for a potential national coaching search.
Supertalk’s Richard Cross reported last week that Ole Miss had offered Kiffin an extension to stay in Oxford to the tune of $9 million per year — a figure that would make Ole Miss’ third-year head coach one of the nation’s 10 highest-paid.
But a Monday report indicated Kiffin will soon leave Ole Miss to become the next head football coach at SEC divisional rival Auburn. Kiffin has denied that report, but other reports reveal that Kiffin is Auburn’s top target and will be offered a large contract imminently — even higher than the Ole Miss extension offer.
A higher annual salary would, of course, be a draw to any college coach. But according to Kiffin himself, available NIL funds have become the top consideration for coaches when deciding where to land or build a program.
“It used to be the stadium, conference, assistant pool, your salary … nope. First question should be, ‘What is your NIL structure?’” Kiffin told Ross Dellenger of Sports Illustrated in October.
Dellenger reported on Oct. 31 that Auburn announced more than $12 million in NIL pledges — still more than the $10 million Jones and the Grove Collective have recently reached. Other reports have suggested Auburn’s NIL figure is closer to $13 million.
But leaders at most NIL organizations have been purposefully vague about how much cash they’ve raised, couching publicly cited figures with vague language and accounting for long-term commitments in their totals.
“Some are putting out numbers, and it’s hard to know if those are projections or what,” Jones told Mississippi Today. “To be clear, this $10 million is all either current cash on hand, annual and monthly membership cash flow, and major gift pledges we’ll collect between now and Dec. 31. It’s what we can show for right now.”
Jones said the Grove Collective has partnered with more than 35 corporations at the national, regional and local levels. Those include companies like Realtree, Dunkin Donuts, Academy Sports and Outdoors, Wheels Up, and Blue Delta Jeans.
Meanwhile, football fans in Oxford will be closely watching what moves Kiffin makes in the coming hours.
“Regardless of what happens in the next few days, Ole Miss fans should take comfort knowing they have an extremely competitive, well-funded and organized collective platform that will compete with anyone in the SEC and around the country,” Jones said. “Our loyal fanbase has stepped up and answered the call, and we’re still working hard to raise even more.”
Blake Pennock was the offensive coordinator at Clinton when Cam Akers played there. He is now the head coach at Ocean Springs with Bray Hubbard as his quarterback. This Friday, Pennock, Hubbard and the Greyhounds take on Brandon for the South State 6A championship. Pennock discusses Akers, Hubbard and the task at hand. The Clevelands also talk Egg Bowl, Lane Kiffin’s future, Southern Miss bowl chances and much, much more.
Gov. Tate Reeves has officially ended the Aug. 30 state of emergency surrounding a water crisis that left Jackson and surrounding areas of Hinds County under a weeks-long boil water notice and poor to no water pressure.
He issued the executive order ending the emergency order on Tuesday.
Reeves had issued the emergency after the two primary raw water pumps at the O.B. Curtis Water Treatment Plant in Ridgeland had been removed for repairs and the collapse of Jackson’s water system was imminent.
The Environmental Protection Agency determined on Oct. 31 that the water from both the O.B. Curtis Water Treatment Plant and the J.H. Fewell Water Treatment Plant was safe to drink.
On Nov. 17, the Jackson City Council voted to enter into a year-long federal “interim stipulated order” through the Environmental Protection Agency regarding the city’s drinking water violations that involves having.a third-party administrator to oversee the system.
The interim order heads to a federal judge to officially take effect.
In addition, the city council on Nov. 10 voted to approve an emergency agreement with WaterTalent LLC to provide temporary water operators for both water treatment plants. The contract is not to exceed $720,000 and will run through Feb. 28, 2023.
In his news release announcing the end of the state of emergency, Reeves continued his attack on the city’s administration for the system’s problems.
“The only remaining imminent challenge is the city’s refusal to hire routine maintenance staff, and that cannot constitute a state emergency. We need new leadership at the helm so that this crisis of incompetence cannot continue,” he said.
“It is also clear that the federal government is working to ensure that Jackson political leadership does not have the authority to mismanage the water system any further. That process needs to be completed, and it needs to be completed quickly. … I am hopeful that the federal government’s efforts to take control away from incompetent hands will wrap up swiftly.”
Meanwhile, the EPA’s Office of Inspector General is continuing its investigation that began in September. It is evaluating the EPA’s response to Jackson’s drinking water violations, as well as conducting an audit to see how spending decisions at the state and local levels impacted the recent water crisis.
Imagine the proverbial 90-pound weakling whipping up on Mike Tyson. Imagine a Chihuahua making short work of a German shepherd. Imagine a rabbit chasing a lion instead of vice versa.
What? You just can’t imagine all that? Ok then, take a not-so-deep dive into college basketball this young season, the SWAC and the Pac-12 leagues in particular. SWAC schools, which long have served themselves up as early season cannon fodder for Power Five schools, have turned the tables. Check out these three scores in particular:
Rick Cleveland
Grambling 83, Colorado 74.
Texas Southern 67, Arizona State 66.
Prairie View 70, Washington State 59.
If you follow college basketball any at all, you know how strange those scores look. After all, this is November when the SWAC basketball teams annually take one (or several) for the team, traveling sometimes great distances to collect a big check and a lopsided loss. Some coaches call them “buy” games. Some others call them “prostitution” games. Historically, the SWAC rarely wins one.
Not this year.
Why the sudden change? Number one, the SWAC teams are playing some of these games at home for a change. All three of the above scores were in games played at SWAC sites. The Pac 12 agreed to a four-year deal to play a SWAC-Pac 12 Legacy Series. Over the first two seasons, this season and next, six teams from the SWAC will play six teams from the Pac-12 on a home and home basis. This year, they play at SWAC sites, next year at Pac-12 sites. In 2024-25, the other six SWAC schools, including Jackson State, Alcorn and Mississippi Valley State, will play the six other Pac-12 schools on a home and home basis.
“We don’t know who we’ll be matched up against,” Jackson State Coach Mo Williams, the former NBA star said. “But we can’t wait to be a part of it.”
Obviously, the SWAC teams love it. You can rest assured Pac-12 coaches hate it. Pac-12 power ratings have dipped like the stock market during a depression. A loss in this series easily could cost a Pac-12 school an NCAA bid at season’s end, which in turn could cost a coach his job.
Still, from this viewpoint, it’s nice to see the tables turned for once. Here’s hoping the tradition-rich UCLA will come to one of the three Mississippi SWAC schools in 2024.
“We don’t get the respect we deserve,” Williams said. “Through the years, SWAC teams have always played these type games on the road. That’s tough.”
And those days aren’t over. SWAC schools still need the big pay days. This week, Jackson State will play Big 10 blueblood Michigan at Michigan on Wednesday night and then the nationally ranked Indiana Hoosiers at Indiana on Friday. The results are predictable. Still, says Williams, “I want to see how we respond on the road against these teams. Hopefully, we’ll be better for it.”
They will be a good bit richer.
There are signs all around that SWAC basketball is taking a step forward – and I am not just referring to the games against Pac-12 teams. Already this season, Alcorn has gone on the road for nine-point victories over traditionally strong Wichita State and Stephen F. Austin. On Nov. 7, the Braves played Ole Miss tough at Oxford before succumbing down the stretch.
If you’re wondering why SWAC teams have suddenly become more competitive, look no further than the NCAA portal. Much like Deion Sanders has done in football, SWAC basketball teams have bolstered their rosters with transfers, often from larger schools.
“You can turn you roster over in a year,” Williams said. “Lots of teams are taking transfers and getting better. It may be hard to keep them, but it’s easier to replace them.”
Prevailing wisdom had it that the transfer portal would only help the rich get richer. Now it seems maybe that’s not always the case. The proof in this case is not in the pudding. It is on the scoreboard.
Amtrak, freight rail companies and the Port of Mobile have struck a deal that will bring back passenger trains to the Mississippi Gulf Coast, connecting Mobile to New Orleans.
A joint statement from all parties – Amtrak, CSX Transportation, Norfolk Southern Railway Company and the Port of Mobile – says they “collectively reached an agreement” that supports both freight trains and passenger trains running in the Gulf Coast Corridor.
“This is going to happen,” said Southern Rail Commissioner Knox Ross. “Everybody has to do what they said they’d do, but this will be a tremendous boost for the Gulf Coast.”
The settlement agreement was filed Monday. The federal board tasked with deciding the route’s future was scheduled to vote on the years-long dispute in December. The board had asked the parties to first attempt mediation.
The proposed route would run two trains daily with stops in Bay St. Louis, Pascagoula, Gulfport and Biloxi. Amtrak hasn’t run a Gulf Coast route since Hurricane Katrina.
Ross said the details of the agreement are confidential and he doesn’t have a timeline of what to expect. A copy of the settlement agreement filed with the Surface Transportation Board had specifics redacted but stated the settlement terms will “completely resolve the dispute” after “several conditions are met in the coming weeks and months.”
Amtrak first filed its complaint with the Surface Transportation Board over a year ago, asking the body to step in to settle the dispute over access to the freight-owned tracks.
In the joint statement, the parties ask the board to pause the case as they work through the agreement.
Board members have sat through days worth of testimonies about the track’s ability to support both passengers and freight trains over the last several months. Had the parties not settled, the board’s Dec. 7 vote would have determined the route’s future.
Amtrak had always maintained the route could handle the added passenger train traffic, freight companies and the Port of Mobile worried it could negatively affect business.
The debate largely pitted Alabama officials against Mississippi leaders who have long championed the return of a passenger route to the Gulf Coast as an economic boon.
“Since Katrina, these downtowns have been rebuilt and become very attractive,” Ross said, referring to the Mississippi cities on the proposed route. “And this will bring people right to their front door.”
