Jack Cristil turns 88 today. Here’s what I wrote about him when he announced his retirement in February of 2011. We knew Jack Cristil couldn’t go on forever. Here lately, he has sounded tired, worn out – certainly not himself. So maybe Wednesday’s news that Cristil is stepping down after 58 years as […]
The following piece was written in 2010, 40 years after Tom Dempsey kicked a 63-yard field goal that was a record that stood until Sunday. I am not a physicist but I can tell you there is no comparison between the kick Dempsey made all those years ago and the kick Matt Prater made yesterday. […]
M.K. Turk, the winningest men’s coach in Southern Miss basketball history and a 2005 inductee into your Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame, died today after a prolonged illness. He was 71. He was a great coach, a great friend. This is the column I wrote about M.K. in 2001 when USM and the City […]
Boo Ferriss turns 92 today. Happy birthday, Coach! A couple months, I was invited to Starkville to speak at a Kappa Sigma event honoring Coach at Mississippi State’s homecoming. What follows is much of my speech… It’s great to be here at Mississippi State and it’s always an honor to be in the presence of […]
(People ask me all the time what was my favorite event to cover: The Masters, the Super Bowl, the World Series, the Final Four? My answer nearly always surprises: No, it was the Mississippi Class 1A State Championship game. And it was. They will play it again Friday morning at 11 a.m.: French Camp vs. […]
No matter whom you pull for, you have to smile about the way things worked out where the 18th C Spire Conerly Trophy and the first Hull Trophy are concerned. The Hull Trophy was instituted for two reasons: 1) to honor a great Mississippian, Kent Hull; 2) and because offensive linemen never get the recognition […]
The Seattle Seahawks took the New Orleans Saints behind the proverbial woodshed Monday night, trouncing the Saints 34-7 in a game that was every bit as one-sided as the score would indicate. Russell WIlson out-Drewed the great Brees. And the Seattle defense, led by ex-Mississippi State linebacker K.J. Wright, stoned the Saints offense. Whether in […]
Charlie Conerly, who died 20 years ago, would have turned 95 today. Permit me to borrow from Mike Lupica, the famous New York sports writer, who wrote about Conerly shortly after his death in 1996. “Charlie Conerly was the quarterback of the ’50s. Maybe you had to be around for all that. . . . […]
