W.C. Gorden, right, pictured with Marino Casem, left, and Rick Cleveland at a Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame function in 2013.
Today is a football Saturday, a good day to remember the life of W.C. Gorden, the College Football Hall of Fame coach who died Friday at the age of 90 in his adopted hometown of Jackson.
First thing’s first: W.C., whom I considered a good friend, was a terrific coach and a better person, always seeming on such an even, gentlemanly keel. He was a sports writer’s dream, a quote machine.
Rick Cleveland
W.C., who knew a thing or two about winning, once told me what “victory” meant to him.
“Victory makes your coffee sweeter and your food taste so much better,” he said. “It makes your jazz sound smoother, the sun shine brighter. It makes your wife look more beautiful. It even makes you sleep better and dream sweeter. Victory makes all the difference in the world.”
For most of his coaching life, Gorden’s coffee must have tasted mighty sweet and his wife was surely a knockout. Over 15 seasons at Jackson State’s head coach, his Tigers won 119 games, lost just 48 and tied 5. In the SWAC, they won 79 and lost 21.
Let’s put it this way: Deion Sanders would love to be so successful.
And here is the stat of this football week: During Gorden’s 15 seasons at the helm, Jackson State won eight conference championships. In the 28 seasons since, the Tigers have won three.
He won those championships in the SWAC’s heyday, when Eddie Robinson was the head coach at Grambling, when Marino Casem, The Godfather, was coaching at JSU’s arch-rival Alcorn and, for a while there, Archie Cooley, The Gunslinger, was at Mississippi Valley. Gorden, nicknamed The Jazzman for the music he dearly loved, just won.
As a coach he was very much the CEO type. He hired good coaches and kept them. He let them coach.
One was James “Big Daddy” Carson, the defensive coordinator who succeeded him. Indeed, Carson’s teams won two of the three SWAC championships the Tigers have won since Gorden stepped down.
In the 23 seasons since Carson retired, six different Jackson State coaches have won one title.
For a guy who won so often, Gorden proved to be a good loser as well.
His one losing season was in 1984 when the Tigers finished 4-5-1. That was the Mississippi football season that will be remembered for Alcorn and Mississippi Valley taking center stage. That was the season when Valley and Alcorn, both undefeated, played on a Sunday in JSU’s home stadium before a capacity crowd. That was the season when Alcorn and Valley went to the NCAA playoffs and JSU stayed home. But, as much as it must of hurt him inside, Gorden smiled through it and seemed to enjoy seeing SWAC football in the limelight. He even did the color commentary for the TV broadcast of that Valley-Alcorn game.
And then he won the next four SWAC championships.
Gorden was on the losing end of another huge day in Mississippi football history. That was in 1987 when Jackson State played at Southern Miss in the first game ever matching one of Mississippi’s HBCUs against one of the historically white universities.
A packed house at The Rock – including about half Jackson State fans – watched Southern Miss grind out a 17-7 victory in a game statistically dominated by Jackson State. Lewis Tillman, the great Jackson State running back, actually out-gained the entire Southern Miss team, which was quarterbacked by none other than Brett Favre.
Afterward, Gorden and then-USM coach Jim Carmody embraced at midfield, and after that Carmody said, “They are as fundamentally sound as anyone we play. They would beat a lot of teams we play.”
Said Gorden, simply, “I felt like we showed we belong.”
Fast forward to 2008 and South Bend, Ind., where Gorden was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.
“I am so elated because this is the ultimate generosity given in recognition of my coaching career,” Gorden said. “Coaching football to me was like living the American dream.”
Democratic U.S. Senate challenger Mike Espy raised nearly $3.9 million in early October. Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith raised just $85,000.
Democratic U.S. Senate challenger Mike Espy raised nearly $3.9 million in campaign cash over the first two weeks in October, compared to less than $85,000 raised by incumbent Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith.
The campaigns filed their last major finance reports on Thursday, ahead of the Nov. 3 general election.
Espy, buoyed by a nationwide flood of cash to Democratic congressional candidates, had raised nearly $9.3 million total for the race as of Oct. 14. Hyde-Smith had raised just under $3 million.
Espy reported having nearly $3.7 million cash on hand for the critical final stretch of the race. Hyde-Smith reported having $777,000 cash on hand.
It’s nearly unheard of for a Democratic challenger to outraise a Republican incumbent in deeply red Mississippi, and Espy has used his cash advantage to bombard the airwaves with his messaging and create a large field operation.
Hyde-Smith has done comparatively little campaigning and less advertising than Espy. Most national political prognosticators still consider Mississippi “safely Republican” for the Senate and presidential election, but Espy’s campaign has received some recent national attention as a potential Democratic upset as the national parties battle for control of the Senate.
See the man with Nick Saban in the photo above? Recognize him? If you follow Southeastern Conference football, surely you do. In recent years he has played a huge role in many of the most important and most watched games in SEC history.
You may not know his name, but you know his face. You probably know his voice. He’s the guy in stripes who always wore the white cap, which differentiates the referee from the other officials. He’s the guy who blew the whistle to start the games. He’s the guy who stood back behind the quarterback, the guy who reached down around his belt and turned his microphone on so that he could tell 90,000 people and millions across the country who committed a penalty and how many yards it would cost his team.
In the storm of emotions that often is college football, he was the calm. He ran the show. Quite simply, he’s the guy who controlled the games until his retirement after the 2019 season.
He is 62-year-old Hubert Edward Owens and he grew up in Yazoo City, and his is a story worth telling.
Hubert Owens nearly always remained calm, but coaches like Les Miles, when he was at LSU, often did not.
Growing up in Yazoo – “half hills, half Delta, all crazy,” wrote Willie Morris, lovingly – Hubert Owens doesn’t remember when there wasn’t a ball around. Matter of fact, he doesn’t remember when there weren’t whistles, black and white striped shirts, and red handkerchiefs around, either. They belonged to his father, Hubert Roosevelt Owens, who officiated high school games and in the SWAC.
The father often took his sons to the games he worked. Big Hubert was an umpire, the guy who stands in the middle of the defensive secondary, just a few yards from the line of scrimmage. The umpire is the guy who most often calls holding penalties. When the umpire throws his flag, the offense usually groans. Big Hubert took his son to games in Lorman, Jackson, Grambling, Itta Bena and Baton Rouge, where the players, fans and the officials were nearly always all African-American.
But here’s the deal: On the Saturdays when little Hubert stayed home and turned the college games on the TV, many of the players were Black, but none of the officials were. One can only imagine the impression that must have left on a 10-year-old who loved sports as much as little Hubert did.
Over half a century later, Owens said, “I don’t know that I thought about it that much. To me, that’s just the way it was.”
Before integration, big Hubert officiated high school games in the old Magnolia High School Activities Association, which was no more after integration. When integration finally did come to Mississippi, the officials who had served the old Magnolia association had to file a court injunction to officiate in the integrated games Mississippi High School Activities Association.
That was only about 50 years ago.
Hubert Owens ran the hurdles for Yazoo City
Before he was a referee, little Hubert Owens was an athlete. He played football and ran track at Yazoo High. Peter Boston, brother of the great Olympic hero Ralph Boston, was one of his coaches, the one who taught him the proper form to run the hurdles in track. Hubert finished third in the state in that event. His football hero in those days was Yazoo’s own Willie Brown, the great NFL cornerback, a Pro Football Hall of Famer. Like Willie Brown, Hubert was a defensive back, talented enough to earn a scholarship to Mississippi Valley State, where he was recruited by SWAC legend Davis Weathersby.
In fact, you will still find Hubert Owens in the MVSU and SWAC record books. In a SWAC game against Arkansas-Pine Bluff, Owens returned a blocked field goal 99 yards for a touchdown.
Upon graduation from MVSU, Owens tried pro football but found, “I just plain wasn’t good enough.”
Naturally, he became an official. Like father, like son.
Hubert Owens accepts the game ball from a young Kentucky fan.
The younger Hubert Owens officiated high school ball and eventually in the SWAC. At first he was a side judge, lining up behind the defense and mostly making calls that involve pass plays. He was a promising official on one of the SWAC’s top crews. Then, in 2002 something happened that changed the course of Owens’ officiating career. His crew was calling a game matching Prairie View and Texas Southern in the annual Labor Day Classic. Dr. Cassie “Cass” Pennington of Indianola was the crew chief, the referee.
“It was right before the game, and Dr. Pennington said he wasn’t feeling well and didn’t think he could do the game,” Owens said. “He looked right at me, took off the white hat and gave it to me.”
“You are the referee,” Pennington said.
And Hubert Owens became a referee for the rest of his career, a career that again drastically changed in the spring of 2005. That’s when Owens attended a officiating clinic in Beaumont, Texas, and ran into an official who told him he would soon be hearing from the SEC. “They want a Black referee and you are the only one on their list,” the man told him. And that’s exactly what happened.
For the football season of 2005, Owens became only the third African American referee in SEC history. In 2013, he became the first African American to serve as referee in the SEC Championship Game at the Georgia Dome in what had become his hometown, Atlanta. (Formerly Director of Contract Compliance for the City of Atlanta, Owens now works at Luster National, Inc. as National Supplier Diversity and Contract Compliance Director.)
Former SEC referee Steve Shaw – by then the director of SEC officials and now the NCAA National Coordinator of Officials – was the man who tabbed Owens to make SEC history.
“Hubert is a really good official, but what sets him apart is his game management,” Shaw said. “He’s in charge and everybody knows it although hardly ever had to raise his voice. That’s No. 1, No. 2 is the rapport he had with the coaches and the respect those coaches had for him. They would see Hubert and say ‘OK, we got Hubert’s crew today. We’ll be in good hands.’ In officiating, you can’t measure the value of that.”
Stan Murray, the former Mississippi State star player, served as a back judge on Owens’ crew for most of Owens’ 15 years in the SEC. They were the products of two different environments. Murray grew up going to mostly segregated schools in Jackson and following the SEC. For many of his formative years, Owens went to an all-Black school in Yazoo City and identified with what he knew, the SWAC. Much later in life, officiating brought them together in the SEC. The two became close friends and share a great mutual respect.
Said Murray, “Everyone on our crew had a nickname and this will tell you how much we thought of Hubert. His nickame was, ‘The Franchise.’”
Murray marvels at his friend’s serene manner in the most pressure-packed moments of officiating high level football, when bowl games, millions of dollars and coaches’ livelihoods hang in the balance.
“Unflappable,” Murray says of Owens. “The players, the fans, the coaches would all be going nuts and he never changed, no matter what.”
Shaw, who was one of college football’s most-respected referees before leaving the field, firmly believes Owens faced pressure he never faced himself.
“Hubert carried a burden I never had to carry because of who he was,” Shaw said. “Think about it. Because of his race, he was so recognizable. He was one of the very few people of his race doing what he was doing at the level he was doing it. It was like he had to be good every week. He had to prepare extra. He had to deliver because he was representing a lot of people. You better believe there were a lot of officials watching him to see how he did.
“That’s what makes his great career even more impressive to me. He had a lot of firsts in his career and he earned those. He was the first to do this and the first to do that, the first to run the show at an SEC Championship and he handled it incredibly well. He did some of the biggest bowl games incredibly well. He provided a great role model for younger African American offiicials.”
Before every season, SEC officials have to run a mile in a certain time in order to meet the criteria to officiate.
Asked if he felt what Shaw called “a burden,” Owens responded, “Well, I did feel like I was representing a whole lot more people than myself. First, I felt I was presenting my father and so many others like him who were never given the opportunities I had. That was a big responsibility, I thought. And then there was the responsibility I felt like I had to those who would come behind me. I wanted to show that I – and people who look like me – could handle the big stage. Looking back, I am proud of the many firsts I had.”
So, we’ve been through the firsts. It’s time to talk about the lasts. Owens said “I just knew” it was time to step away after the 2019 season. “Physically, it was time,” he said.
His last SEC game?
“It was the piss-and-miss game, the (2019) Egg Bowl,” Owens said, chuckling.
Said Shaw, “He handled that ending as well as it could be handled.”
It was not lost on Owens that his last game matched two schools from his home state that his father could not have attended, much less ever officiated one of their football games.
But it was his last bowl game that might mean the most to Owens. He had done several huge bowl games, including the Fiesta Bowl, during his career. Last year, Shaw assigned him the Celebration Bowl – SWAC champion Alcorn vs. MEAC champion North Carolina A&T – televised nationally by ABC. For that game, Shaw put together an all-star crew of all African American officials from the SEC and Sun Belt conferences.
“Of course, the referee had to be Hubert Owens,” Shaw said.
Said Owens, “For me with my background officiating in the SWAC and following in my dad’s footsteps, it felt like the the perfect ending.”
Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today, Report For America
Congressman Bennie Thompson introduces Joe Biden during an event at Tougaloo College on March 8, 2020.
There’s an unwritten rule in Mississippi politics: If you’re a Democratic candidate and you want to win your election, you need the blessing of Congressman Bennie Thompson.
Thompson, described by a newspaper’s editorial board when he was first elected to Congress as “your best political friend and worst political enemy,” is the Democratic kingmaker of Mississippi. He’s the party’s most powerful figure, and for nearly three decades he’s been the lone representative of African Americans in the Blackest state in America.
Thompson, who in less than five decades rose from a small-town alderman to a powerful chairman in the U.S. House of Representatives, has real sway with Black voters. His allies say he doesn’t just serve as the congressman to the 2nd congressional district, where Black voters make up 61% of the electorate — he serves as the unofficial congressman to Black Mississippians across the state.
“If a resident on the Gulf Coast has a problem, they call the congressman’s office,” said Corey Wiggins, executive director of the Mississippi NAACP. “He has never turned away a chance to help Mississippians, regardless of whether they live in his district. He represents the entire state, and that’s how he’s always operated.”
Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today, Report For America
Trey Baker, left, Joe Biden, and U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson attend New Hope Baptist Church on March 8, 2020.
That sway with Black voters is why Joe Biden, the former vice president who was working to shore up the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, called Thompson in March and asked him to host a campaign swing through the state. And it’s why Mike Espy, Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in November, has hitched his 2020 wagon to the congressman.
It’s one thing to need Thompson’s public support, but it’s another thing to receive it. Two years ago, when Espy ran against appointed Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, Thompson didn’t go to great lengths to publicly support him. There were some joint events and fundraising calls, but there weren’t many. Espy’s campaign ultimately fell short of key internal targets that year — most glaringly with Black voter turnout in Thompson’s district — and he lost by about 66,000 votes, or 7.5 points.
This year, as Espy faces Hyde-Smith in a 2018 rematch, is different. Thompson has thrown his complete support behind Espy, appearing with him at numerous public events, hosting Washington fundraisers for him, calling Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Espy’s behalf, and ensuring national Democratic Party brass included Espy in fundraising calls during the Democratic National Convention.
The two are working closely together in the final two weeks of the 2020 election to turn out as many Democratic voters as possible.
“There’s no daylight between Bennie Thompson and Mike Espy in this Nov. 3 election,” Thompson told Mississippi Today on Monday in an hour-long interview. “(Being Mississippi’s only Democrat) is too big a burden on my shoulders. I need help. Mike Espy has the expertise and the love for this state to get it done. So I wholeheartedly want him to come (to Washington) so I can share this disproportionate burden that I’m bearing on behalf of Democratic voters in the state of Mississippi.”
The working relationship between Thompson and Espy this year comes after their political careers, once seen in similar lights, diverged dramatically in the 1990s. In the late 80s and early 90s, Espy, a young congressman representing Mississippi’s 2nd congressional district, was seen as a rising star in the national Democratic Party.
Espy won elections by building coalitions between white and Black voters in the Delta. When former President Bill Clinton appointed Espy U.S. secretary of agriculture in 1993, several people ran in a special election to replace him.
One of the candidates was 45-year-old Bennie Thompson, whose political career was inspired by civil rights activism. He’d served as alderman and mayor of the town of Bolton, and later as a Hinds County supervisor. Thompson won that special election to replace Espy in Congress, and he has won 12 subsequent elections for the seat.
Espy, meanwhile, fell out of political limelight when he resigned as agriculture secretary in 1994 amid allegations of illegally accepting gifts. Though a federal jury acquitted Espy of all charges in 1998, he remained out of politics for close to 20 years, until he announced his bid in the 2018 Senate race.
Eric J. Shelton, Mississippi Today/Report For America
Rep. Bennie Thompson speaks on the phone before a town hall about Delta flooding in Valley Park on April 5, 2019.
Now 72 years old, Thompson is the longest-serving member of Mississippi’s congressional delegation, and he has built a robust political network that touches every county of Mississippi. And this year, he’s using that network to revive Espy’s political career and send him to the U.S. Senate.
“Every time there’s an opportunity to work together, we do,” Thompson said. “We have a day planned on Election Day. There’ll be some areas of my district that I’ll tell him, ‘Mike, you don’t need to have your folk over here. We got your back. You need to go over to Meridian, or Tupelo or Biloxi or Hattiesburg, outside the second district.’ We will free him up from a resource standpoint and a manpower standpoint to work in other parts of the state.”
Thompson said he’s worked hard for Espy this year because the campaign has operated at a more sophisticated level than it did in 2018. Espy’s path to victory, Thompson says, is clear.
“I think he’s going to win because he retooled his campaign from two years ago,” Thompson said. “He’s targeted the voters that he’s trying to touch, those infrequent voters are coming based on the targeting that went with it. We now have a seasoned campaign staff based on certain expertise they didn’t have two years ago. And he’s raised the necessary money to have a credible campaign.”
For 40 years, Republican Sen. Thad Cochran held the state’s Senate seat that is up for grabs in November. Thompson and Cochran, though serving in opposing parties, maintained a close working relationship, regularly meeting and discussing how they could champion legislation that would help Mississippians.
Thompson, who speaks fondly of the late senator and his legacy for Mississippi, said Hyde-Smith hasn’t adequately continued Cochran’s ability to help Mississippi’s most vulnerable.
“Thad Cochran set a high bar. As you know, on his perch (as Senate appropriations chairman), he procured more resources for the state of Mississippi than any other senator in the country,” Thompson said. “You have to temper that with the fact that for every dollar we send to Washington, we get three dollars back. So basically we are dependent on the largesse of the federal government. And if, for whatever reason, we have a person who doesn’t understand that, I don’t care how proud you are, you’re still a representative of a state that’s poor.”
He continued: “I wish her well, but the bar is real high for her to succeed. And unless she changes her trajectory, she will have a tough ticket in Washington.”
As is the case across the nation, race is a central theme of the 2020 Mississippi Senate campaign. Espy, who has acknowledged he needs near record African American turnout to win in November, has focused his campaign on race. He’s been more intentional in 2020 than he was in 2018 about discussing his upbringing in racially polarized Mississippi: how he integrated his high school, how his grandfather founded the state’s first Black hospital, and how he’s worked his political career to build coalitions of different races and political bents.
Hyde-Smith, meanwhile, has made several gaffes when discussing race, including saying on the 2018 campaign trail she would “be on the front row” of “a public hanging” with a supporter.
Thompson, in the Mississippi Today interview, said Hyde-Smith lacks “a sensitivity to African Americans.”
“I think you are the sum total of your experiences,” Thompson said. “If your lot in life has been around a specific group of people, and you’ve been void of African Americans, then that’s who you are. And so while some say you might be prone to gaffes, that’s really who you are. Fortunately, that’s not Mississippi. You can’t talk about hanging and not understand the history of hangings or lynchings in this state and how that’s not, in the eyes of most Black people and a lot of white people, something you brag on. And so I think that sensitivity to issues of race with Cindy Hyde-Smith is just not there.”
Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today, Report For America
Mike Espy attends New Hope Baptist Church, Sunday, March 8, 2020. Espy endorsed Joe Biden for president.
Thompson is well aware that Mississippi has never elected an African American in a statewide election. Mike Espy would not only be the first Black senator from Mississippi elected by popular vote, he would be just the eleventh Black senator in the nation’s history. The congressman, who calls himself “an eternal optimist,” said he believes Mississippians are ready to take that historic step on Nov. 3.
“He can elevate the standard, he can help break the glass ceiling of African American elected officials in this state,” Thompson said. “He would be unique. He was the first African American elected to the House since Reconstruction, and he’ll be the first African American elected to the Senate since Reconstruction. So we’ll have a twofer in Mike Espy.”
Mississippi Today Editor-At-Large Marshall Ramsey sits down for a Zoom conversation with Mississippi’s State Health Officer Thomas Dobbs.
Dobbs, in his second year on the job, discusses his background, the challenges of the pandemic, how he stays healthy during it (exercise and staying away from social media), where we are now and where we are headed in the near future. He also talks about how to vote safely, tips for Thanksgiving and treatments.
Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today, Report For America
President Donald Trump embraces Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith during a campaign rally at BancorpSouth Arena in Tupelo, Miss., Friday, November 1, 2019.
President Donald Trump, who helped Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith win her seat in a 2018 special election with three visits to Mississippi, on Wednesday tweeted his endorsement of her.
“(Hyde-Smith) delivers for Mississippi!” Trump tweeted. “She helped us Cut your Taxes, Secure our Border, and Defend the Second Amendment. Cindy’s opponent, Mike Espy, is a Corrupt Politician who will Raise your Taxes and Open your Borders! Vote for Cindy!”
Senator @CindyHydeSmith delivers for Mississippi! She helped us Cut your Taxes, Secure our Border, and Defend the Second Amendment. Cindy’s opponent, Mike Espy, is a Corrupt Politician who will Raise your Taxes and Open your Borders! Vote for Cindy! #MSSENhttps://t.co/8YzRzj3ngC
A Trump campaign visit to Mississippi, considered “safely red” by most politicos for both Trump and Hyde-Smith’s re-election, is unlikely this cycle, with Trump’s campaign focusing on larger swing states.
Hyde-Smith’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump’s endorsement, but she tweeted Wednesday, “Thank you for your support @realdonaldtrump!”
Hyde-Smith has been one of Trump’s staunchest allies in the Senate, unwaveringly supporting most of his policies and defending him during impeachment hearings. Hyde-Smith has done little in person, open to the public campaigning in Mississippi this cycle, and her Democratic challenger, former U.S. Rep Mike Espy has raised millions more than her in campaign donations. But the Hyde-Smith campaign is banking on proxy support from Trump’s popularity in Mississippi and an electorate that has voted Republican in most federal elections for the last 30 years.
Trump’s endorsement of Hyde-Smith was part of a string of 11 endorsement tweets he made on Wednesday afternoon, including Republican congressional candidates Michelle Fischbach of Minnesota, Jim Oberweis of Illinois, Eric Esshaki of Michigan and Jim Marchant of Nevada.
Also on Wednesday, Hyde-Smith’s Democratic challenger Mike Espy was endorsed by former President Barack Obama. Hyde-Smith responded to this on Twitter, saying, “A vote for Mike Espy is a vote for failed Obama policies. It’s that simple.”
Throughout the month of October, Mississippi Today is hosting some of Mississippi’s most celebrated authors in conversation with Mississippi Today editors and journalists.
The second event in the Mississippi Writers on Mississippi Politics series was a conversation between Mississippi author W. Ralph Eubanks and Editor-in-Chief Adam Ganucheau.
W. Ralph Eubanks is author of Ever Is a Long Time: A Journey Into Mississippi’s Dark Past and the forthcoming A Place Like Mississippi (Timber Press, March 2021). A 2007 Guggenheim Fellow, he is currently a visiting professor of English and Southern Studies at the University of Mississippi
