JACKSON — Forty-seven years ago, a few Hattiesburg businessmen got together and hosted an experimental PGA Tour satellite tournament. They called it the Magnolia Classic. The total purse was $20,000. Those Hattiesburg folks never could have imagined what happened here the past few days. Here on a cool, breezy, sun-splashed Sunday at Country Club […]
Tour veteran Jason Bohn had just polished off a smooth-running 66 to move into a tie for third place, three shots out of the lead, in the sun-splashed Sanderson Farms Championship Saturday. Asked his thoughts about the day, he responded with a smile, “Roll Tide. I can’t wait to watch the game tonight.” He was […]
What 17-year-old Madison Central senior Camden Backel accomplished Monday — shooting 7-under-par 65 at Lake Caroline and then beating seven pros in eight-man playoff — is truly amazing. Backel will now tee off in Thursday’s first round of the Sanderson Farms Championship. Amazing, yes. Unprecented, no. Hattiesburg native and Diamondhead resident Gary Martin was 17 […]
(The late, great Shorty McWilliams of Meridian will be the newest member of Mississippi State’s Ring of Honor at Davis-Wade Stadium. What follows is a column I wrote from the great man’s funeral in 1997.) The game was played in 1943. You and I can only wish we had been there. Dick Smith, then the […]
Before Manning and Payton, Rice and Alworth, before McNair and Hull, Slater and Conerly, Favre and Guy, and all the other stars in Mississippi’s incredible football constellation, there was Bruiser. He was Frank Kinard, born Oct. 23, 1914, 100 years ago today. We’ll honor the great Bruiser tonight (4:30-7 p.m.) when we launch our new […]
We begin with an admission: I just thought I knew about everything there was to know about Mississippi sports history and heroes. And then I started working on a book — Mississippi’s Greatest Athletes — to benefit the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame and Museum about a year ago. That’s when I found out how […]
Not to be overlooked in this most amazing of football seasons has been the emergence of former Southern Miss quarterback Austin Davis as a solid-bordering-on-superb NFL starting quarterback. His story is almost like a fairy tale. He signed a baseball scholarship at USM and then walked on the football team. He became the starter as […]
So Mississippi State is 6-0, ranked No. 1 in the nation and has beaten three Top 10 teams in succession. These are wondrous times filled with unprecedented achievements for the Bulldogs. And yet, I can’t quit thinking about folks I wish were here to share the moment. I would love to have heard Jack Cristil’s […]
