BY RICK CLEVELAND, SPORTS COLUMNIST Not long after sunrise Thursday, Wilson Furr plays his second shot at the first hole at the U.S. Amateur at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Bandon, Ore. Jack Nicklaus, the most accomplished champion in golf history, said it best: “Golf is not, and never has been, a fair game.” Early Thursday afternoon, […]
So, you probably heard or read about Mississippi State’s Jake Mangum, saying good-bye to college baseball at the College World Series with a plea to the NCAA to do something about the inequities in his sport. Specifically, Mangum made a strong case for increasing paid assistant coaches to three (from two) and for significantly upping the limit […]
Chicago Bears Hall of Fame running back Walter Payton (34) runs upfield during an NFL game against the Washington Redskins in Chicago, on Sept. 29, 1985. Our task today? We’re going to put together Team Mississippi, an All-Time, All-Pro football team of native Mississippians. We are going kick rear ends and take names. We’ll mess […]
Johnny Majors, an All-American football player at Tennessee and a championship-winning coach at Pittsburgh and Tennessee, had many Mississippi connections and friends. Among those friends was the late Willie Morris, the beloved Mississippi author who would have been the first to tell you Majors was a “Good Ol’ Boy” and a great storyteller in his […]
They called him Gentle Ben. But Jim Carmody, who coached history-making, trail-blazing Ben Williams at both Ole Miss and then the Buffalo Bills, would like to expound on that nickname. “When Ben Williams was on the football field and the game was on, there was not one thing gentle about him,” Carmody said. “He annihilated […]
The following article is written by former Museum Executive Director, Rick Cleveland and was originally published at mississippitoday.org. Before Gulfport native Brittney Reese became a world champion long jumper, an Olympic gold medalist and a single mother, she was high school and junior college basketball star with a decision to make: Basketball or track and […]
By Rick Cleveland, Mississippi Today In 1957, Joe Gibbon scored more points than college contemporaries Wilt Chamberlain and Elgin Baylor. Three years later, Gibbon helped the Pittsburgh Pirates win baseball’s championship, defeating the New York Yankees in the World Series. Joe Gibbon, one of the greatest multi-sport athletes in Mississippi history, died Wednesday at his […]
You likely have seen Mississippi’s big golf news today: The Sanderson Farms Championship, long the state’s premier golf tournament played annually at Country Club of Jackson, is switching dates and stepping up in status on the PGA Tour. The 2019 Sanderson Farms Championship will be played Sept. 16-22 and the total purse zooms from $4.4 […]
