Oklahoma and Texas are headed to the SEC, and college football, as we know it, faces a huge landscape change over the next few years. How does this affect Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Southern Miss? What happens to the old Big 12, which was actually numbered 10 and is not only eight? What other changes are in store?
Keeping their own public health guidance in lockstep with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Mississippi Department of Health updated its COVID-19 related recommendations on Wednesday, calling on all Mississippians, regardless of their vaccination status, to wear masks while in public indoor spaces.
Additionally, MSDH is recommending that if someone is exposed to someone with COVID-19, they should get tested regardless of their vaccination status. This is due to the presence of breakthrough cases among the vaccinated, seen at a considerably higher rate since the emergence of the Delta variant.
Whether Mississippi school districts will follow MSDH guidance on masking in school buildings is yet to be seen. Most schools are set to begin the new school year in early to mid-August, and many districts across the state are starting the school year with masks being optional for all.
Mississippi Association of Educators (MAE), the state’s teachers union, called on Gov. Tate Reeves to mandate masks in schools in the fall on Monday. Reeves then doubled down on his opposition to COVID-19 related mandates.
“Governor Reeves has no intention of requiring students and staff to wear masks when they’re in school this fall,” Bailey Martin, a spokesperson for Reeves, said.
MSDH also confirmed the fourth COVID-related death of a minor on Wednesday. Two of the four were between ages 11-17, one was between 6-10 and one was between 1-5. The most recent child to die had an underlying medical issue, but State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs said it was a common one.
“It’s nothing that people don’t live with every day in the state of Mississippi commonly,” Dobbs said. “So this is a real tragedy and speaks to the importance of preventing transmission.”
The surge of Delta infections is putting an enormous amount of stress on Mississippi’s healthcare system. The number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients has increased 156% over the past two weeks, most of them unvaccinated. The staffing levels across Mississippi hospitals can’t meet this level of need, especially when it comes to nurses. This is due to many nurses leaving the state for higher paying jobs elsewhere, or leaving the medical field altogether due to the traumas of the past year.
Dobbs said he hears from nurses every day who can’t believe they’re going through another wave.
“I’m sad to say that I think we’re driving some nurses away from inpatient hospital work because it’s so exhausting… I mean, there’s only so much that we can expect for people to put up with and we’re putting a lot more stress on them now,” Dobbs said.
In some areas of the state, patients that would normally be in an ICU are having to receive care in an emergency room because there are no ICU beds available, according to Jim Craig, Director of Health Protection.
Additionally, the number of outbreaks in long-term care facilities has increased from 19 to 95 since July 1. Dobbs stressed that most of these infections are occurring in unvaccinated staff members. Though the vast majority of residents in these facilities are vaccinated, some are being infected by these unvaccinated carriers due to the highly infectious nature of Delta and the weaker immune systems that come with old age.
The worsening conditions for the state’s medical providers are only expected to get worse. Mississippians should expect delays and longer wait times to receive care in hospitals, according to Dobbs. One might be in the ER twice as long as usual, or be transferred to a hospital many hours away from their families.
“That’s just the inevitability of where we are,” Dobbs said. “So, thank your healthcare heroes. Please don’t be frustrated with them. They’re doing everything they can to keep you alive and keep you healthy. Just be prepared to be patient, because it’s going to be a rough few weeks.”
The first time Mike Dennis met Jack Carlisle was in the summer of 1961. Dennis – a remarkable running back nicknamed “Iron Mike” – was about to play his senior season at Murrah High School. Carlisle was the new Murrah head coach, a thin, wiry, man who wore thick glasses and walked with a decided limp.
Dennis’s first impression?
“Well, I thought he was a hard ass,” Dennis said Wednesday morning, the day after he learned of Carlisle’s death. “I mean, he was a hard-ass guy, a tough guy who meant business and let you know it. We had 100 players to start the season. We ended up with 34 or 35.”
Dennis paused, sighing heavily, before continuing, “Yeah, he was a hard ass, but I learned to love that man. I can’t tell you how much he has meant to me. I give him credit for whatever I became.”
Rick Cleveland
It should go without saying that when a man called Iron Mike calls you a hard ass, your rear end is harder than granite. Carlisle’s was. So was the rest of him.
Murrah went undefeated that regular season before losing to Barney Poole-coached Laurel in the Big Eight Championship game. Dennis went on to star at Ole Miss and then to play in the NFL.
Carlisle would have turned 92 in September. The last time Dennis had talked to his old coach was a couple of weeks ago when Carlisle was recovering from life-threatening heart issues. Dennis asked Carlisle how he was doing.
Said Dennis, “He told me, ‘Mike, I can’t see out of one eye, I can’t hear out of one ear, and I can’t walk at all right now, but other than that I am doing pretty good.’ What a great attitude he had.”
This will tell you much about the man known as Cactus Jack Carlisle, who lost a leg in a motorcycle accident when just a teen: In 1961, when Dennis met him, Carlisle already had been coaching for seven years. He would coach for 53 more, 60 in all. He was a ball coach. He was a sometimes crusty character. And he was a winner.
It was my good fortune to know Carlisle well in his later years, when he volunteered at the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame and Museum, where his plaque (Class of 2004) is on display. We held a Jack Carlisle Roast at the MSHOF in 2012, which turned out to be one of the most grand events in museum history. The placed was packed to the rafters and some people stood. So many stories were told. So much love and respect were expressed. And I can’t tell you how many hours I spent listening to his coaching stories. What follow are just three of so many. These are his stories. I’ll do the typing.
We begin in 1954 with Carlisle’s first coaching job at tiny Lula-Rich High School, north of Clarksdale. Lula-Rich had 14 players. One night Lula-Rich was playing at Oakland High, south of Batesville. There was no money for a bus — and, really, with just 14 players, one coach and a manager, no bus was necessary. The team made the trip in five separate cars.
“Well, it got to be 8 o’clock, gametime, and one of the cars hadn’t made it,” Carlisle said. “Turns out, it broke down on some backwater road in the Delta. It was carrying the left side of my line.”
Carlisle was down to 11 players and the manager, a kid named Harris. Carlisle asked Harris to dress out. Harris said they’d have to ask his mom. So Carlisle asked the mother, whom he knew as Miss Polly, a science teacher. Miss Polly wasn’t keen on the idea, but she reluctantly agreed.
Sure enough, Carlisle’s best player got hurt and was carried off the field.
“So I tell my manager to go in the game and just stand off to the side and stay out of the way,” Carlisle says. “I didn’t want Miss Polly on me if the boy got hurt.”
Very first play that followed: Lula-Rich was on defense and the smallish manager, draped in a uniform several sizes too large, stood 40 yards down the field. You’ve heard of the lonesome end? Harris was a lonesome safety. But, of course, an Oakland runner broke through the line and barreled down the field with blockers ahead of him. One of those blockers took dead aim at Harris and knocked him head over heels into next week.
“Here came Miss Polly down to the sidelines,” Carlisle says. “She grabbed her boy, took him to the car, and home they went. His career lasted one play.”
Years and years later, Jack Carlisle saw the manager’s photo in the Sunday newspaper. Thomas Harris had just written Silence of the Lambs. Thomas Harris, Miss Polly’s son and Carlisle’s reluctant safety, is the creator of Hanibal Lecter.
“I had no idea he would become a writer,” Carlisle says, “but I knew he was a little bit different.”
We move ahead now to 1971. Carlisle has just moved from public schools powerhouse Murrah to Jackson Prep, taking a few of his best players with him.
News spread quickly through the academy ranks. Teams began to find all sorts of excuses of why they couldn’t play Prep.
“I only had nine games, but I finally found a team in in England, Ark., that would come play us if we would pay them $1,500 and expenses,” Carlisle says. “Heck, I was desperate.”
The Arkansans showed up with 15 players, 15 little bitty players. It was like the Packers vs. Belhaven.
Carlisle played his first team for the first quarter only, but it was 45-0 at half.
Prep came back out for the second half. The other team did not. The referee delivered the news to Carlisle: “Coach, they say they ain’t playing no more.”
Carlisle went to the visitors dressing room. The coach told Carlisle his players refused to play. Carlisle asked if he could talk to them. The coach shrugged.
So Carlisle challenged their manhood. He asked them if they had no pride.
“Are you Arkansas men scared of some itty bitty Mississippi boys?” Carlisle challenged.
Carlisle also promised he would play only his fourth team, the jayvees. That probably was what did the trick.
Finally, one Arkansas boy stood. “I ain’t scared,” he said. Others followed.
Final score: Prep 66, England Academy 0.
“I might be the only coach to ever give a pep talk to the opposition,” Carlisle said.
Jack Carlisle (left) and Tim Ellis at a “roast” of Carlisle in 2012. Credit: Rick Cleveland
Let’s move on to Ole Miss and the 1977 season. Carlisle was an offensive assistant coach for Ken Cooper, who would be fired at season’s end. The Rebels were playing mighty Notre Dame, which would go on to win the national championship that season. This was not a great Ole Miss team. The Rebels lost to Alabama by 21 the week before. They would lose to Southern Miss the following week. Notre Dame was No. 3 in the nation at the time.
“I was just hoping we wouldn’t get embarrassed. Size-wise and talent-wise, we weren’t their class,” Carlisle told me.
He felt no better when the Fighting Irish trotted out for the pre-game warm-ups in those famous, shiny gold helmets. Said Carlisle, “They were so big I thought the field was going to tilt their way. They made our guys look puny.”
Somehow – partly because of the mid-Mississippi heat and humidity and mostly because Notre Dame had yet to discover a sophomore quarterback named Joe Montana – Ole Miss trailed by only three points headed into the last five minutes. The Rebels got the ball back at their own 20. On the sidelines Carlisle and Cooper discussed strategy – somewhat heatedly.
Carlisle wanted to switch to Tim Ellis, the team’s best passing quarterback. Cooper was hesitant, to say the least. Carlisle convinced him but felt certain his job was on the line.
“I could see them talking,” Ellis told me. “I knew I wasn’t Cooper’s choice.”
So Ellis came off the bench, passed the Rebels down the field and eventually into the end zone. Ole Miss won 20-13, one of the most memorable victories in school history.
Two-time Grammy-winning blues musician Bobby Rush joins Mississippi Today Editor-At-Large for a special edition of Mississippi Stories.
Rush, 86, talks about his incredible life, career and new biography “I Ain’t Studdin’ Ya: My American Blues Story” (written with music historian Herb Powell). From great tragedies (losing three children and suffering injuries in a terrible bus wreck that nearly cost him his life) to great triumphs (professional recognition for an incredible career), Rush tells inside stories about his life.
Known for his energetic performances, he also shares his secrets for success in show business and his passion for entertainment.
To see more Mississippi Stories episodes, click here.
Ahead of the 2021 Mississippi Book Festival, many of us are preparing our cocktail party answers to the age-old question: Why has our state produced so many great writers?
Eubanks expertly uses the state’s landscape — topographical, socioeconomic and spiritual — to explore our literary lineage. That landscape, as we know, has not always been beautiful, but it does help answer that looming question in the most thorough way I’ve heard (including at those cocktail parties).
Ahead of his trip to Jackson for the Mississippi Book Festival on Aug. 21, Eubanks spent some time with Mississippi Today discussing his new book and his perspectives on the state.
Mississippi Today: What inspired you to write A Place Like Mississippi?
Ralph Eubanks: What is interesting about A Place Like Mississippi is that my editor, Will McKay at Timber Press, reached out to me to write the book. So, I have to give my editor credit where credit is due. The idea Will originally presented to me was a book that would introduce readers to the expanding Mississippi Writer’s Trail, beginning in the Delta and fanning out to other sites from there. After some careful thought, I had the idea to write a book that looked at the entire literary landscape of the state region by region, beginning on the Mississippi Gulf Coast and moving northward from there, ending in the Delta.
The real inspiration for the book was the landscape of Mississippi itself. I spent a great deal of time driving around the state, moving from four-lane by-passes to two-lane blacktops (and occasionally unpaved roads). What captivated me was how aspects of the landscape seeped into the work of the state’s writers. I thought of Richard Wright as I stood on the bluffs in Natchez, looking down at the Mississippi River. In Greenville, I thought of Ellen Douglas’s stunning short story “On the Lake” and the way that story’s power lies not just in its narrative tension but also in the way Douglas uses people and place to explore hard truths about race. And in Jackson I thought of how the city’s racial geography affected the writers who were born there, from Eudora Welty to Angie Thomas and Kiese Laymon.
MT: Are there a couple new things you learned about Mississippi during the writing process that stuck with you?
Eubanks: Perhaps rather than learning new things, I would say that I gained some new perspectives. While traveling though the Delta, I often drove past Parchman without thinking of its history or the people inside. Getting the opportunity to take part in classes for Louis Bougeouis’s Prison Writing project made me look at the lives of Mississippi’s incarcerated people in a new way. When I drive by Parchman—or any other prison in Mississippi or America, for that matter—I will not think merely of the punishment that takes place inside the prison walls and the crimes that placed the people there. Now I think of the inner lives of the men and women in prison who are seeking redemption through writing. And now the history of Parchman casts a shadow over how I look at the Delta itself.
I also gained a new perspective on the blues, which I have traditionally thought of as a musical form rather than a literary one, given my formalist education in British literature. Although I understood how the blues influenced poetry, I had never thought of how the blues as a musical form has its own poetic rhythm and meter. I came to see the blues as poetry wrapped in a struggle for survival. When you place the Delta blues together thematically, I realized that they form a Homeric, rhythmic epic poem. That’s a new way of thinking for me.
MT: You’re returning for the festival to Jackson, where you spent what, a couple years? What does Jackson mean to you?
Eubanks: Yes, I spent a year in Jackson as the Eudora Welty visiting scholar in Southern Studies at Millsaps College. Jackson and Millsaps are both special to me, since when I found myself unemployed and floundering, teaching at Millsaps and living in Jackson helped me find my footing again.
Jackson is a city that holds a special place in my heart because it not only took me in during a rough time but nurtured me while I was here. Jackson is key to Mississippi’s future, since if its citizens are thoughtful about how it grows and develops, Jackson could become a city that is an incubator of change in the state.
MT: Putting you on the spot a little bit here: Who is on your Mount Rushmore of Mississippi authors?
Eubanks: There is a statue called “The Storytellers” in downtown Jackson at the corner of Capitol and Lamar Streets that has already made that designation: it is Eudora Welty, Richard Wright, and William Faulkner. These three writers were recently the focus of the annual Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha conference at the University of Mississippi. Scholars see them as their own unique “Mississippi Confluence” and I am inclined to agree. Yes, Rushmore has four figures, but as someone brought up on “Schoolhouse Rock,” I believe that three is a magic number.
MT: What books are on your nightstand right now?
Eubanks: Oh, far too many. I’m balancing reading for my new writing project on the Delta as well as reading for pleasure. I’m reading Sven Beckert’s The Empire of Cotton: A Global History so that I can think about the Delta’s key crop from a more global perspective. I just finished Susan Sontag’s Regarding the Pain of Others, a book that has made me think about how with images of poverty, like those documenting the Delta, heartlessness and amnesia seem to go together. Curtis Wilkie’s When Evil Lived in Laurel was a masterful piece of storytelling that filled in gaps to the story of Vernon Dahmer. I read Melissa Ginsburg’s The House Uptown in one sitting and loved the pacing of the story as well as the New Orleans setting. And I always have poetry by my side, so there is Mister Toebones by Brooks Haxton and Thomas Richardson’s How to Read. My nightstand is just like that old Betty Everett song: it’s getting mighty crowded.
The state education department will consider a takeover of the Holmes County Consolidated School District following an investigation that found the district in violation of 81% of state accreditation standards for schools.
The results of the nearly 400-page audit include allegations of a dysfunctional school board and administration, improper spending, inaccurate record keeping and unlicensed teachers in the classroom.
The audit, which was conducted from April to July of this year, also repeatedly refers to a lack of accurate data provided by the district, making it impossible to assess some standards or to determine the degree to which the district was noncompliant in others.
But Debra Powell, the district’s new superintendent, said she has already begun righting the ship since being hired in May.
District officials stated in a press release that Powell has done major restructuring at both the district and school level. It also included an attachment to a 30-page internal audit of the same standards done by the department.
“Dr. Powell credits her team’s success to a school board that is supportive of change. It is the Board’s desire to make Holmes County Consolidated School District one of the best in the country,” the release stated. “We believe we now have the team of experts to make it a reality.”
Powell has never held a district-level position before but has touted her experience as mayor of East St. Louis.
“When people were saying that I didn’t have any experience being a superintendent, I tell them all the time that yes, I do. It was called ‘mayor.’ It’s the same thing,” Powell told Mississippi Today. “Being the mayor and superintendent is managing — putting the right people in the right place.”
The Mississippi Department of Education’s investigative audit came after a scathing report from the state auditor’s office in 2019 that found “widespread problems” in the district, which has had four superintendents in three years. Findings included a lack of background checks for employees and misappropriation of funds, including the use of funds to host a “Bring Your Own Beverage (BYOB),” adults-only event.
The audit also refers to the recent promotion of Powell’s daughter from a $47,000-a-year position to the director of technology, a district-level job with an annual salary of $82,920.
“This action was taken after the Office of the State Auditor cited the Board in the District’s FY19 audit report for other instances of nepotism violating (state law) related to the hiring of family members of the former superintendent,” the Department’s audit said.
Powell told Mississippi Today that she had nothing to do with the hiring of her daughter, and she made the decision when hired to cancel the district’s technology contract with an outside vendor and bring it back in-house.
“We had nobody to regulate and watch over our technology department … so we created a position, we had three (internal) candidates and two external candidates” for the job, Powell said. “I had nothing to do with the job description. I steered clear.”
She said when the interviews for the position took place, she left the district campus.
“Just because I’m the superintendent does not mean you thwart a person’s ability to move – you just make sure that process is fair for everyone,” she said.
The matter has been referred to the Mississippi Ethics Commission, according to the state education department’s audit.
Powell also refuted the findings that said the school board interferes in the daily operations of the district — including that the board president attended an administrators’ meeting on May 21.
Powell said Louise Winters, the board president, was there only to observe.
“She was observing the administrators’ meeting to see how I acted with the staff” as part of the board’s evaluation of her, Powell said. “She didn’t say a word.”
The department’s Commission on School Accreditation will meet on Monday to decide whether it will recommend that a state of emergency exists in the district. A state of emergency exists when the safety, security and educational interests of students are threatened.
If the commission makes that recommendation, the State Board of Education will hold a special called meeting to determine whether it will recommend that the governor declare a state of emergency in Holmes County schools.
When the governor declares a state of emergency in a school district, the State Board of Education becomes the governing body of the school district, referred to as a “District of Transformation.” The local school board is temporarily disbanded and an interim superintendent is appointed to lead the district until it sustains an accountability rating of C or higher over multiple years.
The state has placed a school district in a conservatorship 20 times since 1997. Current Districts of Transformation include the Tunica and Noxubee County School Districts.
Powell hopes state officials will see she is the right leader to correct the district’s shortcomings.
“I’m feeling hopeful that we will get a fair opportunity to show we are headed in the right direction,” said Powell of the upcoming hearing.
In a brief filed on July 22, Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch urged the U.S. Supreme Court to overrule Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that ruled that the Constitution protects a pregnant person’s right to have an abortion.
In the brief, Fitch called Roe and further abortion-related rulings, most notably Planned Parenthood v. Casey, “egregiously wrong” and argued they recognize a right with no actual Constitutional basis.
“They have proven hopelessly unworkable,” Fitch wrote. “They have inflicted profound damage… And nothing but a full break from those cases can stem the harms they have caused.”
The case at the center of Fitch’s brief, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, revolves around Mississippi’s ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. The Supreme Court agreed to review the case in May, marking the first time since Roe that the Supreme Court has taken up a a pre-viability ban case — a law that prohibits access to abortion based on the amount of time pregnant before the fetus is viable, or around 24 weeks when it is able to live outside the womb.
The 15-week ban, passed by state lawmakers in 2018 and immediately blocked by lower federal courts, will provide one of the first reproductive rights cases argued before the Supreme Court since Justice Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed in 2020, creating the current 6-3 conservative majority.
Fitch argued in the brief that questions over abortion access should be left to state legislators and voters.
“The national fever on abortion can break only when this court returns abortion policy to the states — where agreement is more common, compromise is often possible and disagreement can be resolved at the ballot box,” Fitch wrote.
If the Supreme Court were to overturn Roe, an existing state law will be triggered banning abortion in most instances in Mississippi. The law, which would permit abortions only when the mother’s life is at risk and in cases of rape, was passed in 2007 by the Mississippi Legislature. Nine other states have similar “trigger laws” in effect.
The particular question the justices agreed to decide in the case is “whether all pre-viability prohibitions on elective abortions are unconstitutional.”
In Mississippi’s original appeal to the Supreme Court last year, Fitch argued the 15-week ban complied with existing precedent, and that the court should only overturn Roe if it concluded there was no other way to uphold the ban. Fitch’s latest brief abandoned this earlier, narrower focus on pre-viability restrictions.
Fitch’s brief also goes against how Gov. Tate Reeves described the case during a June 6 appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“The question is not are you going to overturn Roe v. Wade, the question is: The science has changed and therefore it makes sense for the court to review their decisions from the past and this is a vehicle in which for them to do it,” Reeves said. “Let me just tell you that for people such as myself that are pro-life, I believe that the Supreme Court made a mistake in the 1970s, but that’s not the issue at stake that is before the court, hopefully when the arguments are heard sometime in the fall.”
Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Mississippi’s only abortion clinic, only performs abortions until 16-weeks, though current Mississippi law only bans abortion at 20-weeks.
Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, an advocacy group that is representing JWHO in the Dobbs case, said Fitch’s brief “reveals the extreme and regressive strategy, not just of this law, but of the avalanche of abortion bans and restrictions that are being passed across the country.”
The Supreme Court’s next term begins in October, with a ruling in the Dobbs case likely coming sometime in 2022. The Court’s ruling could reaffirm Roe and Casey, hollow them out, or overturn them all together.
Reeves said recently he will not be issuing any mask mandates and has announced Mississippi’s COVID-19 State of Emergency will end on Aug. 15. Most schools are set to begin the new school year in early to mid-August.
The group’s letter coincided with the report of 3,608 new cases over a three-day period, and recent new infections trending similarly to a year ago.
Though the understanding of COVID-19 has evolved over the course of the pandemic, “one thing has never changed: Masks work, and they are a simple and effective way to help prevent the spread of this disease,” the letter states.
Reeves doubled down on his decision on Monday afternoon.
“Governor Reeves has no intention of requiring students and staff to wear masks when they’re in school this fall,” Bailey Martin, a spokesperson for Reeves, said.
While governors in states with low vaccination rates like Alabama and Arkansas have been speaking up urging people to get vaccinated, Reeves has been mostly quiet. It’s been months since he held a COVID-19 specific press conference, and while he said in a recent statement he encourages Mississippians to get vaccinated, he said he respects people’s “right to make that choice” of not getting the vaccine.
The teachers’ group said that the Mississippi Department of Health’s current policy advising unvaccinated individuals to wear masks doesn’t make sense in the school setting.
“It is imperative that schools see state-led intervention beyond advising mask wear among unvaccinated students and educators. This policy has the potential to create more problems than it solves: How will we determine who is and is not vaccinated? Are there repercussions for lying about vaccination status or choosing not to wear a mask if you are unvaccinated? Who is responsible for confirming a student’s vaccination status?” the letter said. “Simply put: It is unfair to ask educators to become their school’s vaccination police when putting on a mask will help keep the entire school community safe and healthy.”
A separate teacher group, the Mississippi Professional Educators, wrote in a newsletter Friday that many of its members had questions about vaccine requirements.
“We have received several inquiries from members as to if a district may ask if an employee has received the COVID-19 vaccination. Our attorney has advised that a district may ask if an employee has received the vaccine and may ask for proof of vaccination.”
Some school districts, such as Jackson Public Schools and West Tallahatchie School District, will be requiring everyone to wear masks when the year begins.
But many of the larger districts, including Madison, Rankin, Clinton, DeSoto and those on the Gulf Coast, are currently making masks optional.
The Mississippi Association of Educators is hosting a Facebook event Monday at 5:30 p.m. with MAE President Erica Jones, State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs, and State Epidemiologist Dr. Paul Byers.
Ole Miss football great Patrick Willis will go into the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame Saturday. Credit: Ole Miss Athletics
Sixty years into its existence, the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame this week prepares for the biggest weekend in its history. That’s no exaggeration.
This Saturday evening, the state’s sports shrine will induct 11 deserving individuals, the most ever in a single year. Because of 2020’s postponement due to Covid, the Hall of Fame classes of both 2020 and 2021 will be installed at a Saturday night banquet at the Jackson Convention Center.
Rick Cleveland
Created by the Jackson Touchdown Club in 1961, the MSHOF often has had a heavy football flavoring at its annual induction banquets. Other sports, especially basketball, at times have seemed under-represented. That’s not the case this year. This surely will be the most diverse group of inductees in the Hall of Fame’s existence. That’s no exaggeration either.
The newest Hall of Famers will include three basketball greats, two former football stars, two golfers, a tennis great, a baseball coach, an administrator and an architect. Actually, four basketball players were elected but former NBA standout Antonio McDyess, selected for the Class of 2020, will be inducted at a later date.
That 2020 class includes Jerry Boatner, the winning-est high school baseball coach in Mississippi history; Pete Brown, the first African American to win on the PGA Tour; architect Janet Marie Smith, who has changed the way America builds its stadiums; former Mississippi State athletic director Larry Templeton, who remains a prominent administrator in the Southeastern Conference; and Ole Miss and NFL linebacking great Patrick Willis.
The Class of 2021 includes Debbie Brock, the remarkable point guard who helped Delta State win three straight women’s basketball national championships; Mississippi State and NBA great Erick Dampier; Jackson State and NBA great Lindsey Hunter; Ole Miss and NFL offensive line star Terence Metcalf; Dave Randall, surely the most accomplished Mississippi tennis player in history; and Randy Watkins, a national junior golf champion, Ole Miss All American Mississippi golf hall of famer.
All are deserving. In many cases, their numbers boggle the mind. Consider: Boatner, already a member of the national baseball coaches hall of fame, won a remarkable 1202 baseball games, first at Clarkdale and then at West Lauderdale. His teams won 14 state championships. And that’s just baseball. His softball teams won eight state championships. Before he coached, Boatner was a fine player for the legendary Boo Ferriss at Delta State.
Hollywood could make a movie about the life of Brown, the son of poor sharecroppers born in Port Gibson. When the Brown family moved to Jackson, young Pete began to caddy at the municipal golf course and learned to play the game with two golf clubs, one left-handed and one right-handed. He learned to play it so well, he became one of the first of his race to play the PGA Tour and in 1964, 11 years before Tiger Woods was born, he won the old Waco Open. In 1970, he won the more prestigious Andy Williams/San Diego Open, prevailing in a playoff with Tony Jacklin, the 1969 British Open champion who would win the U.S. Open later that year. Brown, the only deceased inductee this year, will be represented by his wife, Margaret.
Janet Marie Smith
Smith, a Jackson native and Mississippi State architecture graduate, becomes the first architect in the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame. She could well someday in the Baseball Hall of Fame at Cooperstown, as well. Her hardhat already is – and should be. She famously designed Baltimore’s Oriole Park at Camden Yards, which has become a trendsetter for Major League stadiums. She has since directed the renovation of Boston’s famous Fenway Park and most recently the renovation of Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, where she still works for the Dodgers.
When Larry Templeton, a State grad and Starkville native, took the job as athletic director in 1987, the school’s athletic department was struggling both on the field and financially with aging facilities. Templeton, a former sports information assistant (and, for a while, the golf coach) changed all that. State prospered under Templeton’s guidance. He earned the respect of his peers, becoming the longest serving chairman of SEC athletic directors and had of the NCAA’s baseball committee. He hired the SEC’s first Black head football coach, Sylvester Croom.
Willis, the former Ole Miss football All American, was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2019. At some point, he surely will go into the Pro Football Hall of Fame for his remarkable career with San Francisco 49ers, where he was a first team All Pro linebacker for five seasons. Willis sometimes seemed a tackling machine, winning the Dick Butkus Award as the nation’s best linebacker at Ole Miss and then again in the NFL, one of only two players ever to achieve the feat. (The other is Luke Kuechly.)
Moving to the Class of 2021, Brock becomes surely the smallest of all MSHOF Inductees. Listed at four feet, 11 inches, she led Delta State to three national basketball championships in the 1970s with her playmaking and defensive skills. In four seasons, the Forest Hill native led the Lady Statesmen to 120 victories against only nine defeats as the consummate point guard, making All American three times and eventually being inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame.
Dampier, two feet taller than Brock, also is an important part of Mississippi basketball history. His defensive presence in the lane was critical to the 1996 Mississippi State run to the Final Four, the only Magnolia State men’s basketball team to achieve that feat. Dampier, a Monticello native, controlled the lane for State, and then became the 10th player taken in the NBA Draft. He played 16 years of pro basketball, scoring more than 7,000 points and grabbing more than 7,000 rebounds.
Hunter, who played basketball for Murrah High School in Jackson, was highly recruited out of high school but became of the most accomplished basketball players in Magnolia State history. He signed with Alcorn out of Murrah but quickly transferred to Jackson State where he averaged over 20 points per game for his career and became a first round draft choice. In the NBA, his teams made the playoffs in 12 of his 17 seasons. He scored nearly 8,000 points and passed out more than 2,500 assists as a pro. Hunter is now head coach at Mississippi Valley State.
A Clarksdale native, Metcalf as one of the state’s top football recruits before signing with Ole Miss and becoming one of the school’s most accomplished offensive linemen – All-SEC for two seasons and a consensus All American in 2001. In the NFL, Metcalf played eight seasons, seven with the Chicago Bears.
River Hills tennis pro Randall was born in Memphis but was raised in Tupelo where he was a state junior champion and nationally ranked junior. He signed with Ole Miss and made both All-SEC and All American there, helping Ole Miss to its first-ever NCAA Tournament. As a pro, Randall excelled in doubles, playing 12 years on the Association of Tennis Pros (ATP) tour. In 1993, Randall became the first Mississippian to win a draw match at Wimbledon, defeating Russian Andrei Cherkasov in the opening round.
Randy Watkins
Watkins first gained national prominence as a 15-year-old in 1977 when he won the PGA-sponsored National Junior Golf Championship. Recruited by many of the nation’s collegiate golf powerhouse programs, Watkins chose to stay home and played for Ole Miss where he became an All-SEC and All American golfer, winning the SEC individual championship in 1982. Watkins turned pro, earned his PGA Tour privileges but a series of back injuries marred his professional playing career. He owns and operates three golf courses in the Jackson area where he is a highly respected teaching pro active in the promotion of junior golf.
In addition to the Hall of Fame inductions, long-time Jackson businessman Con Maloney will be presented The Rube Award for his lifetime of contributions to Mississippi Sports. Maloney helped bring professional baseball back to Jackson and then bought the team when the New York Mets wanted local ownership. In addition, Maloney, a long-time state senator, was one of the original supporters of the idea of a Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame Museum and has served on the board of directors ever since it was created.
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Banquet tickets remain on sale for Saturday night’s reception and banquet at the Jackson Convention Center. Call 601 982-8264 for details or go to msfame.com. The reception begins at 5:30 p.m. with the banquet to follow at 7 p.m.
The weekend’s festivities begin with a drawdown and sports auction Friday night at 6 p.m. at the Madison Healthplex Training Center. Then, Saturday morning this year’s inductees and many past inductees will be available for autographs at the museum from 10-11:30 a.m.
