Sunday is Mother’s Day. This is about a Hall of Fame mother, surely one of the most warm, loving, caring mothers who has ever graced this planet. If mother’s wore jerseys, Alyne Payton’s number would long ago have been retired. The world knows Alyne Payton as Walter Payton’s mother, but the world knows only a […]
Mrs. Alyne Payton, whose most famous son, Walter, was nicknamed Sweetness and who embodied that noun herself, died late Monday night after a long illness. She was 87. Mrs Payton endured the early deaths of husband to an aneurysm in 1978 and Walter (to liver disease) in 1999. Through it all, she carried herself with […]
[tentblogger-vimeo 65086471] The New York Jets stunned the football world on Jan. 12, 1969, defeating the Baltimore Colts 16-7 in Super Bowl III, once and for all proving that the AFL teams, which merged with the NFL, were not inferior. The Jets, behind Joe Namath and Misissippi Sports Hall of Famer Larry Grantham, dominated the […]
Notes, quotes and an opinion or two . . . It didn’t surprise me that the Saints took a safety in the first round of the draft. It did surprise me somewhat when I saw Texas safety Kenny Vaccaro’s measurables, which included a 4.6 40-yard dash time. That’s not exactly burning it up for a […]
(The following story, written about Hall of Famer Bob “Bull” “Cyclone” Sullivan, first appeared in The Clarion-Ledger in 1982. A Delta flight passenger left the sports section on board. Frank Deford of Sports Illustrated, flying from Birmingham to New York, picked it up and read my story. Deford used my story as the basis for […]
Rusty Hampton announced today he is leaving The Clarion-Ledger sports department to work for the engineering firm of Neel-Schaffer. This is really good news for Neel-Schaffer. It is awful news for the state’s largest newspaper, and even worse news for readers who get their sports news from the Ledger and its website. I’ll get right […]
Funny how you mind plays tricks on you, more often as you get older. This was back in the ‘60s. Ole Miss had beaten USM in a close game and now our family was driving back to Hattiesburg afterward. State was playing a night game in Jackson. Can’t remember the opponent, but I do remember […]
So, I went up to University Medical Center Friday afternoon to visit my old pal Orley Hood. He was on his fifth day of chemo treatment getting ready for a bone marrow transplant scheduled for next Wednesday. I hoped to cheer him up. Fat chance. It’s hard to cheer up somebody who treats every day […]
