Thanksgiving Day is the renewal of the Egg Bowl, the annual game between the University of Mississippi and Mississippi State University -- hereafter to be referred to by their familiar nicknames: "Ole Miss" and "MSU."
Before You Go. Mississippi is known for steamy Summers, but this is Thanksgiving, so heat won't be an issue. Rain might be: It's being predicted for Thursday, and temperatures during the week are predicted to be in the high 50s in daylight, high 30s at night -- and this will be a night game, and I don't care what State you're in: Chilly and rainy is a bad combination. Though the day may be warm, you may have to bundle up at the game.
Mississippi is in the Central Time Zone, 1 hour behind New York. Adjust your timepieces accordingly. Although Mississippi had, from January 9, 1861 to April 14, 1865, been part of a foreign country, and wasn't readmitted to the Union until February 23, 1870, you will not need a passport to visit, nor will you need to exchange your money.
Tickets. Ole Miss generally sells between 50,000 and 64,000 tickets per home game; MSU, about the same. This one may be a tough buy.
All tickets for Ole Miss home games are a whopping $90. At MSU, lower-level seats are $96, and upper-deck seats are $75.
Getting There. Keep in mind that this is Thanksgiving Week, not just Day, and the normal travel rules will not apply.
It's 1,113 miles from Times Square in Midtown Manhattan to Vaught-Hemingway Stadium in Oxford, Mississippi.
If you want to drive, take Interstate 78 West across New Jersey to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. There, switch to Interstate 81 South through Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia and Virginia, into Tennessee, where it will flow into Interstate 40 West. Take it through Knoxville and Nashville, almost all the way to Memphis, to Exit 24, for Interstate 269 South into Mississippi.
Take Exit 23, turning left onto State Route 302 West, turn right onto Cayce Road, then onto Interstate 22 East. Exit 30 will take you to State Route 7 South, and that will take you into Oxford. Turn right onto U.S. 278 East, and that will take you to the campus.
If you do it right, you should spend an hour and 15 minutes in New Jersey, 2 hours and 45 minutes in Pennsylvania, 15 minutes in Maryland, half an hour in West Virginia, 5 and a half hours in Virginia, 7 hours in Tennessee, and an hour and 15 minutes in Mississippi. That's 18 and a half hours. Counting rest stops, it should be around 24 hours.
It's 1,105 miles from Times Square to Davis Wade Stadium in Starkville, Mississippi. Follow the same directions as you would for Ole Miss until you get to I-40's Exit 368. Take Interstate 75 South, to Exit 2, for Interstate 24 West. Pass Chattanooga, into Georgia, to Interstate 59 South. You'll take that out of Georgia into Alabama. At Birmingham, take Interstate 20 West to Tuscaloosa, and at Exit 68, switch to U.S. 82 West. This will take you into Mississippi, all the way to Starkville.
If you do it right, you should spend an hour and 15 minutes in New Jersey, 2 hours and 45 minutes in Pennsylvania, 15 minutes in Maryland, half an hour in West Virginia, 5 and a half hours in Virginia, 9 hours in Tennessee, 15 minutes in Georgia, 3 hours and 45 minutes in Alabama, and half an hour in Mississippi. That's a little under 24 hours. Counting rest stops, it'll be about 32 hours.
Why do I cite the driving directions? Because that's the best way to get to either school. Amtrak doesn't go to Oxford or Starkville. Greyhound doesn't go to either one, either. Neither Oxford nor Starkville has a major airport, so you'd have to fly to Jackson or Memphis and rent a car to Oxford, or to Jackson or Birmingham and rent a car for to Starkville. So, it's driving (or flying and then driving) or nothing.
Once In the State. Mississippi became the 20th State in the Union on December 10, 1817, meaning the State's Bicentennial has been celebrated all year long. The State was named for the Mississippi River, the name being an Ojibwe word meaning "great river." So, no surprise there.
Mississippi is home to just under 3 million people, with Jackson being the State capital and the largest city, with 170,000 people. Oxford, with 21,000 people, was founded in 1837, and named themselves after the famous English university city, in the hopes that the University of Mississippi would be founded there. In 1848, they got their wish.
The State House in Jackson
Starkville, with 26,000, was founded in 1835, as named for General John Stark, a hero of the Battle of Bennington during the War of the American Revolution. The Agricultural and Mechanical College of the State of Mississippi was founded there in 1878. More commonly known as Mississippi A&M, the name was changed to Mississippi State College in 1932 and Mississippi State University in 1958.
Although Georgia still uses a variation on the "Stars and Bars" flag, and Alabama and Florida still have red X's, Mississippi is the last remaining Southern State that has a form of the Confederate Battle Flag in its State Flag. Moves to replace it with something that isn't representative of treason and racism have, thus far, failed -- not just because of neo-Confederate, but because those who oppose the current flag can't agree on what should replace it.
There were race riots in Mississippi in Meridian in 1871, Vicksburg in 1874, And Yazoo City and Clinton in 1875. And the voter-registration drive known as Mississippi Freedom Summer resulted in the Ku Klux Klan murdering 3 civil rights activists: Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, white, Jewish and from New York; and James Chaney, from Meridian.
Prominent newspapers in the State include the Jackson-based Clarion-Ledger, the Biloxi-Gulfport area-based Sun Herald, the Hattiesburg American, and, in the towns in question, the Oxford Eagle and the Starkville Daily News.
ZIP Codes for Mississippi start with the digits 386 (that one includes Oxford) to 397 (that one includes Starkville). The Area Code for most of Mississippi is 601. For Oxford and Starkville, it's 662. The sales tax is 7 percent.
Courthouse Square is Oxford's address centerpoint, with Lamar Blvd. dividing them into East and West, and Jackson Avenue dividing them into North and South. Oxford-University Transit operates buses, with a single fare of $1.00. Starkville has no public transportation, so if you don't want to drive everywhere, you're going to have to hoof it. Washington Street divides addresses into East and West, and Main Street into North and South. Neither Oxford nor Starkville has a freeway "beltway."
In addition to the main campus in Oxford, the University of Mississippi has regional campuses in Booneville, DeSoto, Grenada and Tupelo.
Notable non-sports graduates of Ole Miss include:
Going In. The official address of Ole Miss' Vaught-Hemingway Stadium at Hollingsworth Field is "All-American Drive & Hill Drive," about a mile southwest of downtown. Oxford-University Transit does run a bus line there. If you drive in, parking is $20.
The stadium, once a horseshoe with the open end pointing northeast, is now a fully-enclosed bowl. The field runs southwest-to-northeast, and was first switched from grass to artificial turf in 1970, back to grass in 1984, back to turf in 2003, and back to grass in 2016.
It opened in 1915, with a capacity of 24,000. It was expanded to 34,500 in 1950, 37,500 in 1973, 42,500 in 1980, 50,577 in 1998, 60,580 in 2002, and to its present 64,038 in 2016. The expansions were necessary because some of the Southeastern Conference's larger schools brought too many fans for the on-campus stadium to hold. Some games were moved to Mississippi Veterans Memorial Stadium in Jackson -- including every "Egg Bowl" against MSU from 1973 to 1990 -- or to the Liberty Bowl in Memphis (especially if they were playing Tennessee or Arkansas).
The on-campus stadium was originally named Hemingway Stadium, in honor of Judge William Hemingway, a professor of law and the chairman of the University's Committee on Athletics, what we would call an athletic director today. In 1982, they added the name of 1947-70 head coach Johnny Vaught, who was still alive to receive the honor. In 1998, the field was named after longtime booster Dr. Jerry Hollingsworth.
The official address of Mississippi State's Davis Wade Stadium is 90 B.S. Hood Road, about a mile southeast of downtown. If you drive in, parking is $20.
Vaught-Hemingway is old, but it's not even the oldest stadium in the State: Davis Wade opened a year earlier, in 1914, as New Athletic Field. In all of the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS, formerly known as Division I-A), only Georgia Tech has an older stadium.
In 1920, New Athletic Field was renamed Scott Field, for Don Magruder Scott, a football star who went on to compete in track & field events at the recent Olympics in Antwerp, Belgium (and would again in 1924 in Paris). In 2001, Floyd Davis Wade Sr., co-founder of insurance company Aflac, was honored: The playing surface remained Scott Field, but the structure surrounding it became Davis Wade Stadium.
Capacity was about 6,000 when it opened, and was expanded to 20,000 in 1936, 35,000 in 1948, 40,656 in 1986, 55,082 in 2003, and to the current 61,337 in 2014. It's a horseshoe open at the south end. The field runs north-to-south, and has always been natural grass.
Food. When it comes to food, "Southern Hospitality" is no myth. Ole Miss has Chops BBQ at Sections B, C, K, L and 55; Rebel Grill at B, E and K; Fry Zone at B and R; Pig-mento's at S2 (south end zone); and, showing that Mississippi is still a very conservative State, both Chick-fil-A and Papa John's Pizza at B, K, 56, and in the north end zone.
MSU's website doesn't have a concession map, or even a description, only a statement that, "There are 17 concession stands located throughout Davis Wade Stadium for your convenience."
Team History Displays. The Ole Miss Rebels are far more successful in football than the MSU Bulldogs. The Bulldogs' only titles are for the SEC in 1941 and the SEC Western Division in 1998. They've won the 1941 Orange Bowl; the 1963, 2007 and 2013 Liberty Bowls;, the 1974 Sun Bowl, the 1981 Hall of Fame Bowl, the 1999 Peach Bowl, the 2000 Independence Bowl, the 2011 Gator Bowl, the 2011 Music City Bowl, the 2015 Belk Bowl and, last season, the 2016 St. Petersburg Bowl. Among the traditional New Year's Day bowl games, they've also lost the 1937 and 2014 Orange Bowls, and the 1999 Cotton Bowl.
How unsuccessful, or under-successful, are they? They're 18-80-3 against Alabama, 35-73-3 against LSU, 6-18 against Georgia, 26-63 against Auburn. Of the old-line SEC teams, the only ones against whom they have a winning record are Vanderbilt (13-7-2) and Kentucky (and that, just barely, 23-22).
Who's the greatest football player in MSU history? They have no College Football Hall-of-Famers, nor any retired numbers. Remember Johnie Cooks? At 10 seasons, he's the longest-lasting MSU Bulldog in the NFL, including winning Super Bowl XXV with the Giants, which also makes him the only Bulldog with a Super Bowl ring.
Ole Miss has done far better. They claim 3 National Championships: 1959, 1960 and 1962. The wire service polls were taken before the bowl games then, and they were awarded, respectively, to Syracuse, Minnesota and USC. But Minnesota lost the 1961 Rose Bowl, which left Ole Miss as the only undefeated team in the country (though with a tie), so they probably should have been named the official National Champions.
They've won the Southeastern Conference title 6 times, all under head coach Johnny Vaught: 1947, 1954, 1955, 1960, 1962 and 1963. They won the SEC West in 2003. These titles are noted with signs on the facade of the south end zone.
They won the the 1955 Cotton Bowl; the 1957, 1959, 1960, 1962, 1969 and 2015 Sugar Bowls; the 2003, 2008 and 2009 Cotton Bowls; the 1948 Delta Bowl, the 1958 Gator Bowl; the 1965, 1968, 1989 and 1992 Liberty Bowls; the 1971 Peach Bowl; the 1986, 1998, 1999 and 2002 Independence Bowls; the 1997 Motor City Bowl, the 2012 BBVA Compass Bowl, and the 2013 Music City Bowl. As for the traditional New Year's Day bowl games, they've also lost the Orange Bowl in 1935; the Sugar Bowl in 1952, 1954, 1963; and the Cotton Bowl in 1961.
There are 9 former Rebels in the College Football Hall of Fame. One is coach Vaught, whose statue stands outside the stadium. 1970 quarterback Archie Manning is another, although his son, 2003 quarterback Eli Manning, is not yet eligible. When he is elected, he will join these Rebel legends who made names for themselves in New York sports: 1937 defensive tackle Frank "Bruiser" Kinard, 1947 quarterback Charlie Conerly, and 1960 quarterback Jake Gibbs. Kinard and Conerly played for the Giants, but Gibbs became a catcher for the Yankees.
Also elected have been 1938 running back Parker Hall, 1948 end Barney Poole, 1959 running back Charlie Flowers, and 1988 tight end Wesley Walls, who won Super Bowl XXIV with the San Francisco 49ers. Kinard and 1956 guard Gene Hickerson, a member of the 1964 NFL Champion Cleveland Browns, are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. 1954 safety Jim Patton was a member of the Giants' 1956 NFL Champions, and 1957 linebacker Larry Grantham was with the Jets when they won Super Bowl III in 1969.
The Rebels have 1 retired number, the 18 worn by Archie Manning. (Eli wore 10, as he does with the Giants.) And they have a special number, the 38 worn by cornerback Lee Roy "Chucky" Mullins, who broke his neck making a tackle against Vanderbilt in 1989. His paralysis compromised his health, and he died in 1991.
At the conclusion of spring football, Ole Miss hosts the intrasquad Grove Bowl, and the head coach decides which player most embodies Mullins' spirit, and gives him the Chucky Mullins Memorial Courage Award, and Mullins' Number 38. A bust of Mullins now stands outside the stadium.
Behind the south end zone is the Olivia and Archie Manning Athletics Pavilion. The street to the east and south of the stadium is named Manning Way.
As for the rivalry between the 2 schools: They've played each other since 1901, and every year since 1944. Ole Miss leads 63-44-6, although MSU won last year and has taken 7 of the last 12. But through 1925, MSU (then still Mississippi A&M) had dominated, winning 13 straight. When Ole Miss won in 1926, their fans tore down the goalposts -- at A&M. To avoid future occurrences, it was decided to give the schools something else to play for: A trophy with a brass football on it.
In those days, footballs weren't as streamlined as they would become in the 1930s, and it looked like a Golden Egg, so that's what they called it. And it's been the Battle for the Golden Egg, or the Egg Bowl, ever since. Ole Miss leads 57-27-5 since the introduction of the trophy.
Mississippi's most famous sports location is not a recent one. In the 19th Century, professional boxing was illegal in America, and when the last fight for the Heavyweight Championship of the World under the London Prize Ring Rules -- the last without gloves, the last "bare-knuckle fight" -- was announced, between Champion John L. Sullivan and challenger Jake Kilrain, fight fans (known as "fancy men," and, yes, that was considered a masculine term at the time) were told to go to New Orleans, where they would board special trains to take them to a location that had to be kept secret, in order to stay one step ahead of the law.
The date was July 8, 1889. The night before, about 3,000 people boarded the trains, having tickets that listed no location, only the words "Destination and Return." The trains rolled overnight, and took them to a temporary ring and stands on a farm in Richburg, Mississippi.
The fight began at 10:30 AM, in 100-degree heat. Kilrain led most of the way, and Sullivan actually threw up during the 44th round. But that probably got all the booze out of his system, and he pummeled Kilrain, whose manager threw in the towel after the 75th round. It was 12:46 PM, and "The Great John L.," a.k.a. "The Boston Strong Boy," was still champion. From this point onward, American boxing would use the Marquis of Queensberry Rules, forcing force gloves and 3-minute rounds.
The site was not used for boxing again. A historical marker is on the corner of what's now named Sullivan Kilrain Road and Richburg Road. It's 6 miles southwest of Hattiesburg, 94 miles southeast of Jackson, 187 miles south of Starkville, 254 miles south of Oxford, and 108 miles northeast of New Orleans. It is only reachable by car.
Two of Mississippi's historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) have won the National Championship of black college football. The aforementioned Jackson State did so in 1962, 1985 and 1996. The other is Alcorn State, in Lorman, winning it in 1968, 1969, 1974, 1984 and 2014. In 1976, they were famously mentioned on the Thanksgiving episode of the police-themed ABC sitcom Barney Miller, as Detective Sergeant Nick Yemana fed his gambling problem by betting on them, and being unable to get the score.
Alcorn State's best-known player is Tennessee Titans quarterback Steve McNair. Another HBCU, Mississippi Valley State, in Itta Bena, produced Jerry Rice.
Back in Oxford: The University of Mississippi Museum is at 500 University Avenue. Between the Lyceum and the Williams Library is the Ole Miss Civil Rights Monument, a statue of James Meredith, depicting his 1962 enrollment. Just south of hometown is Rowan Oak, the restored home of novelist William Faulkner. 916 Old Taylor Road.
In addition to the main campus in Oxford, the University of Mississippi has regional campuses in Booneville, DeSoto, Grenada and Tupelo.
Notable non-sports graduates of Ole Miss include:
* Entertainment:
Actor Gerald McRaney; actresses Mary Anne Mobley (Miss America 1959), Lynda
Mead Shea (Miss America 1960), Kate Jackson and Cynthia Geary; director Tate
Taylor; songwriter Glen Ballard.
* Literature:
Novelists William Faulkner and John Grisham.
* Journalism:
Larry Speakes (White House Press Secretary to President Ronald Reagan), Shepard
Smith.
* Military:
Admiral John S. McCain Sr., grandfather of Vietnam War pilot, Senator and 2008
Republican Presidential nominee John S. McCain III.
* Politics,
representing Mississippi unless otherwise stated: Governors William Allain, Earl
Brewer, Martin Conner, Lee Russell, Hugh White, Ross Barnett, Cliff Finch, Paul
Johnson, John Bell Williams, William Winter, Ronnie Musgrove, Haley Barbour, Millard
Caldwell of Florida, Winfield Dunn of Tennessee, and Jeanne Shaheen of New
Hampshire; Senators Hernando Money, Hubert Stephens, James Gordon, James
Eastland, Thad Cochran and Trent Lott.
* In fiction, Star Trek Doctor Leonard "Bones" McCoy, played by DeForest Kelley, was said to be an Ole Miss graduate, although a native of Georgia.
* In fiction, Star Trek Doctor Leonard "Bones" McCoy, played by DeForest Kelley, was said to be an Ole Miss graduate, although a native of Georgia.
Notable
non-sports MSU graduates include:
* Politics:
Senators John Stennis of Mississippi and Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee.
* Journalism:
WABC-Channel 7 Eyewitness News anchor Bill Evans, New York meteorologist Audrey
Puente (daughter of legendary bandleader Tito Puente).
* And former
WorldCom executive Cynthia Cooper, who shared Time magazine's 2002 Person of
the Year with other “whistleblowers.”
Going In. The official address of Ole Miss' Vaught-Hemingway Stadium at Hollingsworth Field is "All-American Drive & Hill Drive," about a mile southwest of downtown. Oxford-University Transit does run a bus line there. If you drive in, parking is $20.
The stadium, once a horseshoe with the open end pointing northeast, is now a fully-enclosed bowl. The field runs southwest-to-northeast, and was first switched from grass to artificial turf in 1970, back to grass in 1984, back to turf in 2003, and back to grass in 2016.
The on-campus stadium was originally named Hemingway Stadium, in honor of Judge William Hemingway, a professor of law and the chairman of the University's Committee on Athletics, what we would call an athletic director today. In 1982, they added the name of 1947-70 head coach Johnny Vaught, who was still alive to receive the honor. In 1998, the field was named after longtime booster Dr. Jerry Hollingsworth.
Vaught-Hemingway is old, but it's not even the oldest stadium in the State: Davis Wade opened a year earlier, in 1914, as New Athletic Field. In all of the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS, formerly known as Division I-A), only Georgia Tech has an older stadium.
In 1920, New Athletic Field was renamed Scott Field, for Don Magruder Scott, a football star who went on to compete in track & field events at the recent Olympics in Antwerp, Belgium (and would again in 1924 in Paris). In 2001, Floyd Davis Wade Sr., co-founder of insurance company Aflac, was honored: The playing surface remained Scott Field, but the structure surrounding it became Davis Wade Stadium.
MSU's website doesn't have a concession map, or even a description, only a statement that, "There are 17 concession stands located throughout Davis Wade Stadium for your convenience."
Team History Displays. The Ole Miss Rebels are far more successful in football than the MSU Bulldogs. The Bulldogs' only titles are for the SEC in 1941 and the SEC Western Division in 1998. They've won the 1941 Orange Bowl; the 1963, 2007 and 2013 Liberty Bowls;, the 1974 Sun Bowl, the 1981 Hall of Fame Bowl, the 1999 Peach Bowl, the 2000 Independence Bowl, the 2011 Gator Bowl, the 2011 Music City Bowl, the 2015 Belk Bowl and, last season, the 2016 St. Petersburg Bowl. Among the traditional New Year's Day bowl games, they've also lost the 1937 and 2014 Orange Bowls, and the 1999 Cotton Bowl.
How unsuccessful, or under-successful, are they? They're 18-80-3 against Alabama, 35-73-3 against LSU, 6-18 against Georgia, 26-63 against Auburn. Of the old-line SEC teams, the only ones against whom they have a winning record are Vanderbilt (13-7-2) and Kentucky (and that, just barely, 23-22).
Who's the greatest football player in MSU history? They have no College Football Hall-of-Famers, nor any retired numbers. Remember Johnie Cooks? At 10 seasons, he's the longest-lasting MSU Bulldog in the NFL, including winning Super Bowl XXV with the Giants, which also makes him the only Bulldog with a Super Bowl ring.
A young Bill Belichick, Bill Parcells, and Johnie Cooks,
at Super Bowl XXV, Tampa Stadium, January 27, 1991
Ole Miss has done far better. They claim 3 National Championships: 1959, 1960 and 1962. The wire service polls were taken before the bowl games then, and they were awarded, respectively, to Syracuse, Minnesota and USC. But Minnesota lost the 1961 Rose Bowl, which left Ole Miss as the only undefeated team in the country (though with a tie), so they probably should have been named the official National Champions.
They've won the Southeastern Conference title 6 times, all under head coach Johnny Vaught: 1947, 1954, 1955, 1960, 1962 and 1963. They won the SEC West in 2003. These titles are noted with signs on the facade of the south end zone.
There are 9 former Rebels in the College Football Hall of Fame. One is coach Vaught, whose statue stands outside the stadium. 1970 quarterback Archie Manning is another, although his son, 2003 quarterback Eli Manning, is not yet eligible. When he is elected, he will join these Rebel legends who made names for themselves in New York sports: 1937 defensive tackle Frank "Bruiser" Kinard, 1947 quarterback Charlie Conerly, and 1960 quarterback Jake Gibbs. Kinard and Conerly played for the Giants, but Gibbs became a catcher for the Yankees.
The Rebels have 1 retired number, the 18 worn by Archie Manning. (Eli wore 10, as he does with the Giants.) And they have a special number, the 38 worn by cornerback Lee Roy "Chucky" Mullins, who broke his neck making a tackle against Vanderbilt in 1989. His paralysis compromised his health, and he died in 1991.
At the conclusion of spring football, Ole Miss hosts the intrasquad Grove Bowl, and the head coach decides which player most embodies Mullins' spirit, and gives him the Chucky Mullins Memorial Courage Award, and Mullins' Number 38. A bust of Mullins now stands outside the stadium.
Johnny Vaught and Archie Manning
As for the rivalry between the 2 schools: They've played each other since 1901, and every year since 1944. Ole Miss leads 63-44-6, although MSU won last year and has taken 7 of the last 12. But through 1925, MSU (then still Mississippi A&M) had dominated, winning 13 straight. When Ole Miss won in 1926, their fans tore down the goalposts -- at A&M. To avoid future occurrences, it was decided to give the schools something else to play for: A trophy with a brass football on it.
In those days, footballs weren't as streamlined as they would become in the 1930s, and it looked like a Golden Egg, so that's what they called it. And it's been the Battle for the Golden Egg, or the Egg Bowl, ever since. Ole Miss leads 57-27-5 since the introduction of the trophy.
The Golden Egg, in front of the Lyceum,
the signature building of the Ole Miss campus
Ole Miss also has notable rivalries with Louisiana State, a.k.a. LSU, a game known as the Magnolia Bowl, trailing 41-61-4; Arkansas, trailing 28-35-1 (or 27-36-1, if you believe Arkansas); Alabama, trailing 48-11-2; and the University of Memphis, formerly Memphis State, leading 48-11-2.
UPDATE: Through the 2020 season, Ole Miss leads MSU 63-45-6, but trails Alabama 53-10-2, LSU 64-41-4, and Arkansas 36-30-1.
UPDATE: Through the 2020 season, Ole Miss leads MSU 63-45-6, but trails Alabama 53-10-2, LSU 64-41-4, and Arkansas 36-30-1.
Stuff. The Rebel Shop is under the West Stand at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. The University Bookstore is at the Ole Miss Union, at Student Union Drive at North Lane. MSU doesn't have a large team store at Davis Wade Stadium. The MSU Bookstore is adjacent to the stadium, at 75 B.S. Hood Drive.
There aren't many books about either program. But in 2000, the sports staff of The Clarion-Ledger published Bloodfeud: The Storied Rivalry of Ole Miss-Mississippi State Football.
During the Game. This is a blood feud -- although that's the 1st time I've seen it written as 1 word. As Keith Jackson, that great college football broadcastin' Southern gentleman, would say, "These two teams just... don't... like each other!" So if you're going to either school, especially if they're playing each other, stick with the home team's fans. Your chances of getting out of the State, never mind off the campus, with your head in one piece will go way up.
By the 1950s, The Grove, a short walk north of the stadium at University Avenue and Grove Loop, named for the oak, elm and magnolia trees on the premises, had become Ole Miss tailgate party central. After a 1991 rainstorm combined with car and RV tires to tear up the grass, vehicles were banned, and now it's a tent city for tailgaters. Also, probably because of all the wood, open flames and propane grills are not allowed, so the food has to be pre-cooked.
This is not like college football in the Northeast or the Midwest: Many Grovers dress up to tailgate. Men wear slacks, button-up shirts, ties (sometimes bow ties), and the shoe of choice seems to be Sperry Top Siders. Women wear cocktail dresses and high heel shoes. There's fine china, sterling silver and lace doilies. No, I'm not joking: It's like a San Francisco 49ers game, but with a Southern accent, no talk of tech stocks, and while wine is possible, you're more likely to find hard liquor.
The "Grove Walk," or the "Walk of Champions," has been a tradition since 1985, and many schools have a similar tradition. The players walk down the sidewalk in the middle of the Grove, and fans reach out and touch the players, on their way into the stadium.
Ole Miss calls its band The Pride of the South. Their fight song is "Forward, Rebels." Yeah, about that...
In 1937, "Colonel Reb," looking like an elderly Confederate veteran, was introduced as a mascot, but he only appeared in print until 1979. With the success of professional mascots such as the San Diego Chicken and the Phillie Phanatic, Ole Miss fans wanted a costumed mascot, and the Colonel debuted.
In 1983, Ole Miss administration began to move away from all that Confederate stuff, barring faculty from displaying Confederate imagery in their offices. In 1997, with then-head coach Tommy Tuberville noting that he was having trouble recruiting black players, the Student Senate passed a resolution prohibiting the Confederate Battle Flag at athletic events.
Apparently, the Colonel forgot to put on pants,
and went to this game in his pajama bottoms.
In 2003, the school retired Colonel Reb, and was without a mascot for a few years. A few students got the idea to use the character of fish-headed Admiral Ackbar from the Star Wars films -- after all, he commanded the military forces of the Rebel Alliance! But they couldn't get permission from Lucasfilm to use his likeness. So in 2010, noting that black bears were common in Mississippi, they introduced "Rebel, the Black Bear." The fact that the bear was black encouraged some black people, but angered others.
By 2008, Ole Miss fans had begun doing a gesture called "The Landshark," based on the 1975 Saturday Night Live parody of Jaws. So, a few weeks ago, University Chancellor Jeffrey Vitter announced that, starting next season, Rebel the Black Bear will be retired, and a new Landshark mascot will be introduced. Silly? Maybe not: Landshark Beer, which currently owns the naming rights to the Miami Dolphins' stadium, is owned by singer Jimmy Buffeet, and he's a Mississippi native (although he grew up in Mobile, Alabama, and attended the University of Southern Mississippi).
The traditional Ole Miss cheer, "Hotty Toddy," begins when someone yells out, "Are you ready?":
Hell yeah! Damn right!
Hotty Toddy, gosh almighty!
Who the hell are we? Hey!
Flim flam, bim bam
Ole Miss, by damn!
MSU has their own version of the Grove, The Junction, on the south side of Davis Wade Stadium. It was named for the railroad that once ran through the area. Like the Grove, it's tents yes, cars no. And, 3 hours before kickoff, the Bulldog team and the coaches do the Dawg Walk through The Junction.
The Mississippi State Famous Maroon Band plays the National Anthem, the fight song "Hail, State!" and, since 2014, at the request of head coach Dan Mullen, the Journey song "Don't Stop Believin'." The mascot is Bully the Bulldog. The 1st live mascot was used in 1935, and they're now on Bully XXI. They also have a Bully in a suit.
The Bullys
If there's one thing Mississippi State football is known for, it's the cowbells. If Christopher Walken were to go to an MSU game, he would never again asked for "more cowbell."
Supposedly, the origin is that a cow -- of the Jersey breed, named for Britain's Channel Island, for which New Jersey was named -- wandered onto the field during an early game with Ole Miss, and MSU won big, and their fans presumed it was good luck. This Bulldog cow story may be bullshit, but the ringing of cowbells in the stands was underway by the late 1930s, and became iconic during the 1941 SEC title season. To this day, just as you can always tell a Princeton graduate by the stuffed or ceramic Tiger he has in his home or office, you can always tell a Mississippi State graduate by the cowbell he keeps there.
In 1975, after a complaint by Auburn coach Shug Jordan, the SEC banned "artificial noisemakers." This temporarily led Auburn's arch-rivals, Alabama, to start using them, even though Crimson Tide fans had no love for MSU. A few fans got around the rule, but in 2010, the ban was lifted, with some restrictions: Cowbells can only be run at specific times, with the video boards letting them know.
After the Game. As I said, stick with the home fans, and stay away from the visitors, and you should be okay. If the home fans do any taunting of the visitors, do not join in.
There are a few places to eat around Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. Just to the west of it, the new basketball arena, the 9,500-seat Pavilion at Ole Miss, has a fast-food stand called Raising Cane's Chicken Fingers. Across All-American Drive from the Stadium and the Pavilion is an Einstein Bros. Bagels. A few steps away, inside the J.D. Williams Library, there's a Starbucks. An iconic Mississippi chain is Gus' World Famous Fried Chicken. The closest one is at 306 S. Lamar Blvd., downtown.
Postgame meals or snacks will be harder to come by at MSU. The University Bookstore is to the west of the stadium, and it's a Barnes & Noble, which means it's got a Starbucks. But you'll have to head downtown, down State Route 12, to find some of the chains with which you're familiar. The most famous Starkville eatery is Mugshots, at 101 N. Douglas Conner Drive., downtown.
If your visit to Mississippi is during the European soccer season, you're going to have a tough time finding a bar that will show your club's match. The best such "pub" in the State is generally considered to be the Capitol Grille, at 5050 I-55 North Frontage Road, about 5 miles north of downtown Jackson.
Sidelights. Both schools are considerably closer to the big city at the northern end of Mississippi, Memphis, Tennessee (Ole Miss 84 miles, MSU 183) than they are to the big city at the southern end, New Orleans, Louisiana (Ole Miss 347, MSU 293).
Jackson, the State capital, is about 161 miles south of Oxford, 126 miles southwest of Starkville, 209 miles south of Memphis, 238 miles southwest of Birmingham, 188 miles north of New Orleans, and 405 miles east of Dallas.
Mississippi Veterans Memorial Stadium opened in 1950, and seats 60,492. Because of its size, all 3 of the FBS schools in the State played selected home games there: Ole Miss from 1953 to 1996, MSU from 1953 to 1990, and Southern Miss from 1952 to 1988. Jackson State University, the "historically black" school that produced Walter Payton, has played home games there since 1967. 2531 N. State Street, about 2 miles north of downtown. Bus 1.
The University of Southern Mississippi is the alma mater of Hall of Fame quarterback Brett Favre, which (if you didn't already know) won't come as a big surprise to you. And I've already told you that Jimmy Buffett has a degree from USM, so that won't surprise you. What might surprise you is that it's also the alma mater of Chuck Scarborough, the Pittsburgh-born anchor of WNBC-Channel 4's news since 1974.
USM is in Hattiesburg, 114 miles northeast of New Orleans, 248 miles south of Oxford, 181 miles south of Starkville, and 296 miles south of Memphis. Since 1932, the Golden Eagles have played at M.M. Roberts Stadium, formerly Faulkner Field, now seating 36,000. 118 College Drive.
There are 2 minor-league baseball teams in Mississippi, both in the Class AA Southern League. The Biloxi Shuckers are a farm team of the Milwaukee Brewers, and play at the 6,076-seat MGM Park. It opened in 2015, and the Shuckers won a division title that year.
The Mississippi Braves are a farm team of the Atlanta Braves, and play at the 8,480-seat Trustmark Park, built in 2005. The Braves won the Pennant there in 2008. 1 Braves Blvd., in the Jackson suburb of Pearl, 3 miles southeast of downtown. No bus service.
The classic Mississippi baseball team was the Jackson Generals, named, like the city, for General and President Andrew Jackson. At other times, the team was known as the Jackson Mets, the Jackson DiamondKats, and the Jackson Senators. As the Mets, they won Pennants in 1981, 1984 and 1985. From 1975 to 2005, they played at the 5,200-seat Smith-Wills Stadium. It's now used mainly for small-college football. 1200 Lakeland Drive, about 4 miles northeast of downtown. Bus 4B.
Across the street is Lefleur's Bluff State Park, home of the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame, the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science, and the Mississippi Children's Museum. The Hall of Fame includes the items from the former Dizzy Dean Museum, as the 1930s St. Louis Cardinal pitcher lived his adult life nearby, with his wife Patricia in her hometown of Bond, and they're buried there.
Pennant winners in the old Class C Cotton States League included the 1913 Jackson Lawmakers and the 1927 and 1928 Jackson Red Sox.
Who a Mississippian supports in baseball may depend on his age. Because of their vast radio network, if he's old enough to remember before the 1980s, he's probably a St. Louis Cardinals fan. If he came of age in the 1980s or '90s, when TBS became the South's national "superstation" and the Atlanta Braves got good, he's probably a Braves fan. If he's too young to remember the Braves winning Pennants, and his experience with championship baseball is from watching ESPN or Fox Sports instead of watching TBS or listening to KMOX, then he probably roots for the Yankees or the Boston Red Sox.
Except for the northwestern corner of the State, close to Memphis, and for some strange reason supporting the Dallas Cowboys, Mississippi's favorite NFL team is the New Orleans Saints. The NBA doesn't have much of an effect: The northwest favors the Memphis Grizzlies, the south favors the New Orleans Pelicans, but, in between, it's either the Los Angeles Lakers or whatever team LeBron James is playing for at the moment.
Mississippi doesn't care much about hockey (despite its overwhelming whiteness, it's also overwhelmingly foreign and "socialist"), but, as you might guess, the favorite team is the closest one, the Nashville Predators, and that was true even before the Preds made the 2017 Stanley Cup Finals.
Mississippi doesn't care much about hockey (despite its overwhelming whiteness, it's also overwhelmingly foreign and "socialist"), but, as you might guess, the favorite team is the closest one, the Nashville Predators, and that was true even before the Preds made the 2017 Stanley Cup Finals.
Mississippi's most famous sports location is not a recent one. In the 19th Century, professional boxing was illegal in America, and when the last fight for the Heavyweight Championship of the World under the London Prize Ring Rules -- the last without gloves, the last "bare-knuckle fight" -- was announced, between Champion John L. Sullivan and challenger Jake Kilrain, fight fans (known as "fancy men," and, yes, that was considered a masculine term at the time) were told to go to New Orleans, where they would board special trains to take them to a location that had to be kept secret, in order to stay one step ahead of the law.
The date was July 8, 1889. The night before, about 3,000 people boarded the trains, having tickets that listed no location, only the words "Destination and Return." The trains rolled overnight, and took them to a temporary ring and stands on a farm in Richburg, Mississippi.
The fight began at 10:30 AM, in 100-degree heat. Kilrain led most of the way, and Sullivan actually threw up during the 44th round. But that probably got all the booze out of his system, and he pummeled Kilrain, whose manager threw in the towel after the 75th round. It was 12:46 PM, and "The Great John L.," a.k.a. "The Boston Strong Boy," was still champion. From this point onward, American boxing would use the Marquis of Queensberry Rules, forcing force gloves and 3-minute rounds.
The site was not used for boxing again. A historical marker is on the corner of what's now named Sullivan Kilrain Road and Richburg Road. It's 6 miles southwest of Hattiesburg, 94 miles southeast of Jackson, 187 miles south of Starkville, 254 miles south of Oxford, and 108 miles northeast of New Orleans. It is only reachable by car.
Two of Mississippi's historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) have won the National Championship of black college football. The aforementioned Jackson State did so in 1962, 1985 and 1996. The other is Alcorn State, in Lorman, winning it in 1968, 1969, 1974, 1984 and 2014. In 1976, they were famously mentioned on the Thanksgiving episode of the police-themed ABC sitcom Barney Miller, as Detective Sergeant Nick Yemana fed his gambling problem by betting on them, and being unable to get the score.
Alcorn State's best-known player is Tennessee Titans quarterback Steve McNair. Another HBCU, Mississippi Valley State, in Itta Bena, produced Jerry Rice.
Back in Oxford: The University of Mississippi Museum is at 500 University Avenue. Between the Lyceum and the Williams Library is the Ole Miss Civil Rights Monument, a statue of James Meredith, depicting his 1962 enrollment. Just south of hometown is Rowan Oak, the restored home of novelist William Faulkner. 916 Old Taylor Road.
If there's one positive thing Mississippi is known for, it's a grand musical legacy, particularly the "Delta Blues." (A "delta" usually refers to a triangle, but the "Mississippi Delta" is more of a diamond shape, between the Mississippi and Yazoo Rivers, from Tunica south to Vicksburg.) This is the region that produced Bessie Smith, Muddy Waters (McKinley Morganfield), Howlin' Wolf (Chester Burnett), Willie Dixon, B.B. King, and Robert Johnson.
In his 1936 song "Cross Road Blues," later turned into "Crossroads" for Cream by Eric Clapton, Johnson told of dropping to his knees and asking God for mercy. But the legend says he went the other way, and sold his soul to the Devil in exchange for becoming the world's greatest guitar player. It may have worked, but at a price: Just 2 years later, on August 16, 1938 -- 10 years to the day before Babe Ruth, and 39 years before Elvis Presley -- Robert Johnston died, some say of being poisoned by the husband of a woman he was fooling around with, some say of syphilis. He was 27 years old, possibly the first "member of the 27 Club."
The crossroads in question is the intersection of U.S. Routes 61 and 49 -- also giving rise to another song, Bob Dylan's "Highway 61 Revisited." While it was rural in 1936, it's been built up a little since, and there is a historical marker there, and highway realignments have meant that it's no longer the intersection of 61 and 49. 599 N. State Street. There is a Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale, at 332 Delta Avenue. 76 miles southwest of Memphis, 61 miles west of Oxford, 145 miles northwest of Starkville.
Did I mention Elvis? The King of Rock and Roll was born on January 8, 1935, in Tupelo, The "shotgun shack" where he lived for the 1st 3 years of his life still stands, and the address is now 306 Elvis Presley Drive. It's 109 miles southeast of Memphis, 55 miles east of Oxford, and 67 miles north of Starkville.
Because of his Mississippi and Memphis roots, Elvis played several shows in the Magnolia State early in his career, in 1955. A lot of these were in high school gyms and auditoriums: Ripley on February 7, Randolph on March 1, Big Creek on March 28, Toccopola on March 29, Charleston on April 5, Sledge on April 6, Houlka on April 21, Bruce on June 14, Belden on June 15, and McComb on September 9.
He also played the City Auditorium in Clarksdale on January 12, March 10 and September 8; the Booneville Junior College Auditorium on January 17; the Alcorn County Courthouse in Corinth on January 18 and April 7; the VFW Club in Hernando on April 19; the American Legion Hut in Grenada on April 20; the American Legion Hall in Meridian on May 25; Meridian Junior College Stadium on May 26; the Slavonian Lodge in Biloxi on June 26; the Airman's Club in Biloxi on June 27 and 28, and November 7 and 8; the Tupelo Fairgrounds on August 1; the Community House in Biloxi on November 6; and the National Guard Armory on December 13.
He also played the Von Theatre in Booneville on January 3, 1956, and returned to the Tupelo Fairgrounds on September 26, 1956 and September 27, 1957. Toward the end, he played the State Fair Coliseum in Jackson on May 5 and June 8 and 9, 1975, and on September 5, 1976. Now named the Mississippi Coliseum, the 6,500-seat arena has stood since 1962 at 1207 Mississippi Street, downtown.
The Beatles never played in Mississippi. Johnny Cash did, many times, and on May 11, 1965, he was arrested for public drunkenness in Starkville. He wrote a song about it, "Starkville City Jail." It's been said that Cash was arrested in 7 places, but he only wrote a song about 1 of them. Contrary to popular belief, he never actually served time in prison -- not in Folsom, not in San Quentin, not anywhere. (He didn't write "Jackson," his duet with eventual wife June Carter, and it's generally believed that the Jackson in question isn't the one in Mississippi, but the one in Tennessee, where his pal Carl Perkins was from.)
Mississippi has never produced a President, or a Vice President. But it hosted a pivotal moment in American history. The Union would have found it very hard to win the American Civil War had General Ulysses S. Grant, who went on to become President, not won his Siege of Vicksburg on July 4, 1863 -- right after the equally pivotal Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania. The siege essentially cut the Mississippi River, and thus the Western half of the Confederacy, in half.
Vicksburg National Military Park is located at 3201 Clay Street, 42 miles west of Jackson, 205 miles northwest of New Orleans, 244 miles south of Memphis, 196 miles southwest of Oxford, and 160 miles southwest of Starkville.
The tallest building in Mississippi is the 347-foot Beau Rivage Casino Resort. 875 Beach Blvd. in Biloxi, on the Gulf Coast.
Mississippi has inspired writers like Faulkner, Tennessee Williams, Eudora Welty, Zora Neale Hurston, Willie Morris and John Grisham. But a lot of the fiction inspired by the State is based on its racial divide. The 1965 novel In the Heat of the Night led to a 1967 film and a 1988-92 TV series. Dyersburg, Tennessee stood in for the fictional Sparta; for the TV show, Hammond, Louisiana and later Covington, Georgia stood in.
Other films concerning the issue, many of them filmed where the actual events took place, include For Us the Living: The Medgar Evers Story, Mississippi Burning and Ghosts of Mississippi. Purely fictional films include the 1959 and 2014 versions of Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, the 1958 and 1984 versions of Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Neil Simon's World War II-set comedy Biloxi Blues, and Grisham's A Time to Kill.
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Mississippi has a reputation. Some of it is worth being proud of. Some of it is best left in the past, even though William Faulkner wrote, "The past isn't dead, it's not even past." The Egg Bowl between the University of Mississippi and Mississippi State University puts the State's passions on display. It is a spectacle like no other.
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