Marino Casem, Hall of Fame Alcorn coach and ‘Godfather of the SWAC,’ dies at 85
Rick Cleveland
Marino Casem, left, with Leslie Frazier at Frazier’s 2017 induction into the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame.
This was 17 years ago, the summer of 2003. My assignment was to cover the inductions of Alcorn State’s Marino Casem, the legendary coach, and Jackson State’s Willie Richardson, the splendid pass receiver, into the College Football Hall of Fame, then located at in downtown South Bend, Ind.
Of the countless trips made over the years to cover various athletic events, this one stands out. Number one, Casem and Richardson were by then long retired and had become dear friends of mine. Number two, here were two authentic Mississippi sports heroes who had spent most of their college football years in relative anonymity, finally getting their just due on the national stage. That weekend they shared the stage with the likes of Dan Marino, Reggie White, Kellen Winslow and Ronnie Lott.
Believe this: They belonged. Obviously, Richardson, an NFL star for the Baltimore Colts, would have caught touchdown passes at Southern Cal, Notre Dame, Alabama or Ole Miss had he been given the chance. Casem, hailed as The Godfather of the SWAC, would have won as a coach at any of those places and charmed the national media, just as people such as John McKay, Bear Bryant and Johnny Vaught did.
Rick Cleveland
Don’t just take it from me. Listen to Leslie Frazier, who played for Casem at Alcorn, won a Super Bowl ring with the Chicago Bears, has been an NFL head coach and is now the highly respected defensive coordinator of the Buffalo Bills.
“All that success Coach Casem had at Alcorn in the SWAC would have translated in the SEC, the Big 12, the ACC or anywhere else,” Frazier said. “The reason I say that is discipline is the foundation at every level of football, and he was a disciplinarian of the first order. He was also a great teacher, who was compassionate with his players. Those qualities resonate at every level. When the players know you care and you give them structure and you teach, they’ll play for you. That’s a fact.”
This is written today because of sad news of Casem’s death Saturday. The old coach and athletic director passed away at 85 at home in Baton Rouge. We lost Willie Richardson suddenly and far too early four years ago.
What also made that assignment 17 years ago so memorable was watching the two aging gentlemen soak in the long overdue acclaim. Here’s what Casem, who coached Alcorn to seven SWAC championships said: “After 42 years of involvement in college football, the greatest thing to ever happen to me is happening here today.”
Mississippi Department of Archives and History
Then-Gov. William Winter makes a presentation to football star Willie Richardson at his 1979 induction into the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame.
And this, from Richardson: “When I was at Jackson State, we had players who could have played anywhere and I mean anywhere. Maybe a lot of people back then didn’t know that, but we as players knew it. I feel like I represent a whole lot of players here.”
That weekend, Casem told me for the first time about how he almost did not become a football coach. He grew up in Memphis and graduated from college at Xavier in New Orleans, where he had studied to become a physical therapist. But while Casem waited for a job offer, his future wife lined up a football coaching job for him at Utica Junior College, where she then worked as an assistant to the president.
“The day I took the coaching job all the hospitals started calling,” Casem said. “So later on, every time Betty Jean would complain about the coaching business and all the long hours, I’d tell you, ‘Well if it hadn’t been for you I’d be running a hospital by now.’”
He probably would have, too, because Casem was a force of nature, possessor of a magnetic personality, high intellect and a work ethic that never stopped. Casem took over at Alcorn, a remote outpost, even for the SWAC. “One way in, one way out, unless you know the gravel roads,” Casem once told me.
“To me, Alcorn was the perfect place to be a football coach,” Casem said. “It was a great place to train an athlete because you didn’t have all the distractions you had other places. Our players focused on football. You had their attention.”
Casem said the key to winning at the Alcorn was no different than that at Southern Cal or Notre Dame.
“Hard work, discipline, integrity, fundamentals and more hard work,” Casem said. “We didn’t take any short cuts at Alcorn.”
Yes, he said, there had been times since he had retired from coaching that he wondered about what it might have been like to coach at one of college football’s national powerhouses and earn the kind of money those “big-time” coaches were making.
“But I never thought about it back then; I never envied what others had,” he said. “I was totally focused on winning where I was. That was plenty.”
Plenty, indeed. And leave it to The Godfather to put college football’s pull on our society in perspective with these immortal words:
“On the East Coast, football is a cultural experience. In the Midwest, it’s a form of cannibalism. On the West Coast, it’s a tourist attraction. And in the South, football is a religion, and Saturday is the holy day.”
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Marshall Ramsey: Bobby Rush beats COVID-19
When I heard that Bobby Rush had COVID-19, my stomach sank. We had just lost John Prine to the virus and the thought of losing a living legend like Bobby seemed too much. On Thursday, I read that he had beat the disease. And during a time when hope seems to be as scarce as toilet paper, I found joy.
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COVID-19 relief bill: Espy says Hyde-Smith blasting Democrats for advocating for what she supports
Eric J. Shelton, Mississippi Today/ Report for America
The Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, Mike Espy rematch rematch is shaping up to be competitive despite the current limitation on campaigning because of the coronavirus.
While the coronavirus has brought a halt to in-person campaigning for the November general election, incumbent Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith and her Democratic opponent, former Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy, are still jockeying for electoral advantages.
That jockeying played out over the last few weeks as Congress took up and passed a fourth relief package to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic.
As the bill was considered, Hyde-Smith spent a considerable amount of time criticizing congressional Democrats, Espy in absentia, for holding up the latest relief package to get what she said was “unrelated” items added to the legislation.
Bobby Harrison
But the Espy campaign pointed out that after the legislation passed, Hyde-Smith sent out a news release touting those “unrelated” items as needed to help fight the pandemic.
Politics can be confusing.
About two weeks ago it became apparent that legislation was going to be considered to add more funds to the Paycheck Protection Program, which among other things provides forgivable loans to small businesses that use the money to continue to pay their employees for at least eight weeks during the significant economic downturn caused by COVID-19.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, apparently with the backing of Hyde-Smith, wanted the legislation to deal solely with the Paycheck Protection Program. He said as much to the full Senate.
But congressional Democrats said the program also should include funds for hospitals hit hard by the coronavirus, money for COVID-19 testing and funds to state and local governments that have seen their tax revenue plummet because of the economic downturn.
After Democrats blocked efforts to pass legislation dealing only with the Payroll Protection Program, Hyde-Smith tweeted on April 15, “Democrats must stop blocking new (Paycheck Protection) funding.”
In the end, Democrats prevailed in including funds for hospitals and for testing but not for beleaguered state and local governments.
Despite her objections to adding items other than the Payroll Protection Program, after the bill passed she praised the items added to the bill at the insistence of the Democrats.
“The ongoing needs and hardships spread across the health care system and our economy are obvious. The longer the economic shutdown goes on, the more it becomes apparent that it is unsustainable. This legislation is intended to help as we move toward a safe reopening of more day-to-day commerce across the nation,” Hyde-Smith said in a news release voicing her support for the bill she described as “adding paycheck Protection Program funds, further support for hospitals and testing.”
In the very same news release, she again criticized Democrats, saying “they delayed completion of this new legislation for more than a week with new demands on issues unrelated to important ongoing relief programs.”
Were those issues – funds for hospitals and coronavirus testing – important to deal with the pandemic or were they unrelated?
Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today, Report For America
Mike Espy, a former congressman and former U.S. agriculture secretary is running for U.S. Senate.
“If ever there was a demonstration of political hypocrisy, look no further than Sen. Hyde-Smith,” Espy alleged. “After a week of complaining about Democrats in the Senate trying to ensure the latest round of coronavirus relief included funding for hospitals and coronavirus testing, she is now all too happy to try and take credit and celebrate the very funding she was fighting against being in the bill.
Justin Brasell, a spokesperson for the Hyde-Smith campaign, countered, “It took the Democrats two weeks to agree to a deal that contains virtually nothing that Republicans ever opposed. Republicans have always supported more medical funding as soon as necessary… Democrats have delayed critical resources getting out the door at every turn. Is this the new precedent Mississippians should expect moving forward? To be exploited for partisan leverage?”
The bill McConnell wanted to pass and supported by Hyde-Smith would have simply increased funding for the Payroll Protection Program by $300 billion. Nothing else.
“I am literally talking about deleting the number 350 and writing 650 in its place,” McConnel said on the Senate floor before Democrats blocked that effort.
Earlier Brasell said more could be done later.
“It’s important to understand that this fourth relief bill is likely not the last legislation that will be needed as the nation continues to respond and recover from COVID-19,” he said. “McConnell has tried to keep the focus on simply refunding the SBA Paycheck Protection Program. Aid for state and local government could be negotiated as part of future legislation.”
Money for hospitals and for testing already has been addressed. Everyone, despite the rhetoric, seem to concede it was needed.
In the 2018 special election to replace long-term Sen. Thad Cochran who resigned for health reasons, Espy and Hyde-Smith engaged in a spirited campaign. The rematch is shaping up to be just as competitive despite the limitation that could be placed on campaigning because of the coronavirus.
Disclosure: Mississippi Today, as a nonprofit news organization and a small business, applied for and received a loan through the Paycheck Protection Program in the amount of $257,500.
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‘A Good Meal is Hard to Find’ cookbook showcases charming blend of Southern food, art and storytelling
On a spring day in 2014, while in the parking lot of a H-E-B supermarket in Houston, Amy Evans received a phone call from a close friend from the Mississippi Delta.
“Martha randomly dialed me up and said, ‘Amy, the titles of your paintings would make really good headlines for recipes,’” Evans recalls. “I was like, ‘Yeah, whatever.’”
Denny Culbert
Amy C. Evans
Evans, who had just moved back to her home state of Texas after living in Oxford for about 13 years, was not convinced when Martha Foose, award-winning chef and cookbook author, first presented the idea of collaborating on a cookbook.
It wasn’t until about a year later that Evans finally began to see the potential of Foose’s vision. While attending a panel discussion on collaboration during the Southern Food Writers Conference in Knoxville, Evans decided to reach out to Foose without hesitation.
“I was sitting in the audience, and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is what Martha is talking about. We could do this,’” Evans said during a phone call with Mississippi Today. “So I texted her from the audience during that panel and was like, ‘Do you still want to do that book with me?’”
Soon after, Evans and her daughter, Sofia Grace, took a road trip to Foose’s hometown of Pluto. Evans brought her paintings, which she describes as “folksy, nostalgic and Southern,” and camped out in Foose’s kitchen where the two women talked about the recipes that would best correspond with each piece of art.
“I just remember being in that kitchen and being so excited that these paintings I’ve done for the past 15 years were being given another life through Martha’s recipes,” Evans said. “It just all clicked. It was so easy for us to connect the dots and have the paintings inspire the recipes and then fully develop these characters I introduced in the titles of my paintings.”
“A Good Meal is Hard to Find: Storied Recipes from the Deep South” features 60 recipes and 60 paintings categorized under the quirky cookbook’s five chapters: “Morning Glories,” “Lingering Lunches,” “Afternoon Pick-Me-Ups,” “Dinner Dates & Late-Night Takes” and “Anytime Sweets.” The cookbook’s release date is Tuesday, April 28.
Copies are currently available at Square Books in Oxford, where Foose first fell in love with cookbooks as a teenager in the 1980s.
With headlines like Lucille’s Lemon Lavender Float and Ula Mae’s Spoonbread with Oysters and Artichokes, the book’s recipes all begin with a short paragraph providing a glimpse into the lives of these Southern, female characters and their finesse in the kitchen.
“It was such a fun process,” Evans said. “I flushed out my painting titles to kind of extend the stories and wrote a short little paragraph that told you a little bit more of my original character that I conjured up for the painting.”
Evans, who attended graduate school at the University of Mississippi’s Center for the Study of Southern Culture and worked for the Southern Foodways Alliance, says her paintings have always been about Southern women with old-fashioned names like Josephine and Esther. The theme is inspired by her maternal grandmother, Alla Grace Browder Riley, whom Evans would visit every summer in Alabama as a child. It was in her grandmother’s kitchen where she developed an interest in the South and a love of Southern food and culinary traditions.
“This wouldn’t have happened without Amy’s paintings,” Foose said. “I had always been a fan of her artwork. The titles of her paintings always tickled me. It was so fun for us to just sit around and think about the characters and what they would do in their kitchens.”
Miki McCurdy
Martha Hall Foose
Foose says readers can expect a broad range of recipes suited for any type of cook. Some recipes, like Grace’s Four-Corner Nabs, require a more involved process. But, on the other hand, one can still come across simple recipes with Jiffy mix on the ingredient list. And the Yazoo City native doesn’t think anyone should be embarrassed for freestyling or wanting to do things their own way in the kitchen.
“I don’t think folks should be shamed,” she said. “Everybody’s busy. And these days, now that we’re all locked in, you just have to make due with what you have. If you’re making an effort to cook for people you love or even yourself, do what you have to do and make the best of it.”
Foose points out that with the popularity of social media sites, such as Pinterest and Instagram, known for their food-styled visuals, it’s easy for folks at home to feel the pressure to emulate what is pictured. She hopes the photo-less cookbook she created with Evans will encourage people to take a leap of faith and be more creative.
“This cookbook is for whoever wants to read a fun story and get in the kitchen,” Evans said. “In the back of the book, we encourage people when they make a dish to send us an image of it so we can put it on the Good Meal is Hard to Find site. We’re letting readers and home cooks drive how the story ends in their kitchen.”
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Mayor’s Music Series: Brad Foutch
Join us every day as we enjoy some great music from local musicians!
The Odds are Stacked Against Me
Season 2 Episode 3
It was brought to my attention today that this podcast has been picked up and hosted by several other sites. Along with ourtupelo.com, Anchor.fm and Spotify, there have been other platforms pick up the podcast as of today. Google Podcasts, Breaker, PocketCasts, and RadioPublic have all picked up the show and if you have any of those platforms you can hear it. I was also made aware that Apple is pending – so we’ll see. I do have all of you to thank for that because if there were no listeners – there’d be no platforms. I appreciate it from the bottom of my heart – I promise. Enough of the sappy stuff let’s dive into to what is happening today and find out what matters to me. Well, I’ll tell ya what really matters and that is knowing that my bills are going to be paid. During this quarantine, I have had plenty of time to cultivate my conspiracy theories. One I’ve had for a long time is that I believe there is some invisible force that uses me as their own court jester. If there is a such of a thing as a crystal ball then the person peering into my life on the other end is having a field day giving me a hard time.
I’ve said it before that if there had been a most likely to fail category in school, I would have won it, but my picture and name would have been wrong in the year book. If I had been a contestant on the Voice, they would have turned their chairs around and kept going. I have to be one of the unluckiest persons in the world when it comes to good fortune – I’ve opened cookies at the Chinese restaurant that were empty. If you remember the good old days when you could be the 10th caller into the radio station to win something, I was always 11th. I think you get the idea that good fortune isn’t always on my side. The only thing I ever won that still, to this day – 25 years later, blows my mind; is the heart of my lovely wife. I still haven’t figured that out yet. I’m not complaining about that one though. This week, I tried to file for Mississippi unemployment because I am a private self-employed contractor. If you thought I was just being silly about misfortune – then you will be a believer once this podcast is finished.
Part 1
They say that the odds of winning the lottery are slim compared to say a satellite falling on your head from outer space, or lightening striking you. I’m sure I’m the guy that gets hit on the head by the satellite followed by the bolt of lightening. At the same time, while I am flopping around like a fish out of water after being tasered by God almighty – the wind will have whisked a lottery ticket into my wife’s hands.
This past week my wife and I both filed for Mississippi Unemployment benefits. We are both independent self-employed contractors in our businesses and Mississippi opened up their portal to those individuals this week. I filled out my portion and did all the pertinent entries and answered all the questions. When I finished it said that my benefit amount was 0.00. I figured as much. Then, I filled out my wife’s with her. All of our answers were similar for our current work situation. When we finish with hers it gave a dollar amount and said – full benefit.
Okay, is it me or did the satellite just hit me in the head? Okay, I know she is prettier than I’ll pretend to be. She’s way more talented. I mean, if she sang the phone book it would win a Grammy. I could master Mozart’s Queen of the Night to perfect perfection and Mozart would sue me from the grave. Am I alone in this? Of course, I am! How do you explain it? I would have thought it might be Karma (if I remotely believed in it) trying to slap me for something I did as a kid.
I started thinking. I must find something I can do to win so I will feel better about myself. It didn’t take me long to zero in on the youngest. He is 5’2 and weighs about 92 lbs. He is competitive so this beatdown would be perfect because he wouldn’t even see it coming. I challenged him to a basketball game. My sister has a basketball goal beside her house that has been lowered. That makes me feel taller, so I am already thinking that my misfortune is about to turn around. We take some time to warm up and shoot the ball some. I am knocking the bottom out of the bucket and that ensues the trash talk. It is my plan to verbally get into his head to give myself an advantage.
I give him the ball first. I didn’t want him to be too upset if I went up by 2 and not give him that opportunity. He misses his first shot and I score 2 on the rebound. I am feeling good about myself and I’m getting under his skin. The look as if this were a friendly game was wiped off his face when I went 4 then up by 6. It doesn’t matter than he’s 11 and I’m 45. I am in the best shape I’ve been in since I was 12 – so I see it as an even competition. He manages to take advantage of some missed shots I tried from too far out and now it’s 6-4. It didn’t take me long to go up by 6 more and make it 12-6. I don’t think Michael Jordan felt this good when he scored 50 in a single game. I am feeling unstoppable and took some quick outside shots that didn’t fall, and he manages to shorten the gap and make it 12-10. Next thing we know, I am up 14-10. The highlight reel should show how much fun it is to pretend you are Dikembe Mutombo and slap the ball across the yard when someone 7 inches shorter than you tries to shoot the ball. I was feeling like Hulk Hogan at the Saturday Night Main Event. Then, out of my over confidence I was talked into a rule change. My son says, “how many points can I get if I make it back here like a 3 pointer?” I said, “I’ll give you 8 points if you make it back there.” I had the opossum eating grin on my face when I said it! Then, out of nowhere he nails the shot and the score is now – 18-14. It’s okay – I am still in this. Then, after taking the ball I shoot and missed. He grabs the rebound and takes the ball back out and drives back towards the goal. He side steps me and I knock the ball out of his hands. He grabs the ball and drives at me again. There’s no way he’ll just shoot from where he is but then he does and nails the bottom of the basket – nothing but net.
He beats me – by 6. All the smack talk down the drain. I quickly realize that I will never be able to make excuses – ever – for the rest of my life. He puts the basketball under his arm and walks away. I’m standing under the goal saying – best out of 3. He says, “why?” Well, I don’t know that’s just what you say when you realize you just got beat by an 11-year-old. There’s nothing left to do but lay down right where I am so the satellite falling from outer space doesn’t have to hit a moving target. While I am lying there waiting on the satellite to fall on me, I had this other question come over me that still leaves me wondering. How did we play this entire game bouncing a ball and stepping all over ground underneath this goal – and not step into the dog poop I just laid down in.
Transition
It would be a great help to me if wherever you are hearing the podcast if you could just leave a comment and give me a like. This week I’d like to honor our medical heroes working on the front lines. To do this, I changed my Facebook profile picture to one with me wearing a mask. How about we all do this? Let’s show these men and women how much they matter to us by changing our profile pics on social media by wearing our masks! When you do make sure you use the hashtag #youmatter and let’s continue to support them.
Reeves opens most businesses, but not establishments like salons and spas under safer-at-home order
Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today
An empty parking lot at the Dogwood Festival Market in Flowood, Miss. Businesses have been closed in the state to slow the spread of the coronavirus. Retailers will be allowed to reopen on Monday.
Gov. Tate Reeves, touting that the state is making progress in battling COVID-19, announced Friday afternoon he is allowing most retail businesses to reopen, but not such establishments as hair and nail salons, barbershops, spas, gyms, casinos and entertainment venues.
He said the close personal contact those businesses demand makes it unsafe to reopen them at this point.
Reeves called his new executive order “a safer-at-home order,” replacing a shelter-in-place order that has been in effect for the past three weeks.
Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today
Gov. Tate Reeves speaks to media during a press conference Friday, April 24, 2020, at the Woolfolk State Office Building in Jackson, Miss. Gov. Reeves signed a new executive order establishing a statewide safer-at-home order to move toward reopening the economy.
“A safer-at-home order is not a return to normal,” he said. “I wish it was.”
State Health Officer Thomas Dobbs, who was in attendance at the Friday afternoon news conference in the Woolfolk State Office Building where Reeves announced the order, endorsed the governor’s action.
“This is a measured, appropriate step at this time after careful consideration,” Dobbs said.
Under the order, which begins Monday morning and runs until May 11, gatherings of 10 and more people still will be banned. Retail stores will be mandated to limit entrance into their stores to no more than 50 percent of capacity.
Restaurants still will be limited to offering pickup and delivery services.
The order is statewide, but Reeves said it will not preclude local governments from going further. For instance, if a municipality wants to close restaurants, that option would be available.
Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba recently said on social media “We still have ground to gain in this fight. Our current stay-at-home order is extended until April 30. This is not a time to scale back.”
Dobbs said during the past four or five days that the increase in the number of coronavirus cases appears to have stabilized. Still, on Thursday, the Department of Health reported 281 new cases, the second highest total for a single day, and eight new deaths. As of Thursday, the state had reported 5,434 total cases and 209 deaths.
“We are winning this fight, but the fight is not over,” Reeves said.
The new executive order will allow health care providers to resume performing some elected medical procedures. There still will be some limitations, such as reserving 25 percent of capacity for coronavirus cases.
Dobbs said some elected medical procedures can be resumed because Mississippi’s health care providers have not been overwhelmed with COVID-19 cases as once was feared.
Reeves said his order instructed the elderly, those with pre-existing conditions and those with weakened immune systems to continue to shelter in place and for other people to limit travel.
Reeves, who has been providing updates most days for the past month, continued to bemoan the impact the coronavirus is having not only on the state’s health but also on the state’s economy, especially on lower and middle income Mississippians.
“We are starting to reopen our economy,” he said. “It’s not a light switch that only goes on and off. It’s a dimmer. We can take measured steps to make life better.”
Last week Reeves allowed retail stores that previously were closed to start providing curbside services and he opened beaches and lakes, such as the Ross Barnett Reservoir. He said the new executive order could be amended before it ends in two weeks.
Reeves continued to maintain he does not have the constitutional authority to prohibit church services, but said he urges pastors to not conduct in-person services.
Vincent Creel, a spokesman for Biloxi Mayor Andrew “FoFo” Gilich said of Reeves’ actions, “’Stay the course’ is the message we heard. Right now, the mayor is focused on continuing to watch the numbers, especially locally, and crafting guidelines that will be in line with a responsible recovery, when the time is right. The most important thing is to make sure everyone is aware it will not be business as usual. But it will be business when the time is right.”
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A tour of Mississippi: McComb
Color your way through Mississippi with me! Click below to download a coloring sheet of McComb.
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Marshall Ramsey: Suing China
Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch announces she is going to sue China on behalf of the state for the damage COVID-19 has done (following Missouri’s lead.)
One text, we’ll see what’s next.
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