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(What follows is a column I did on Rusty Thoms and his two-year run at the College World Series (1997-98). This column was actually written in 2007, on the occasion of State’s last visit to Omaha. Thoms, more than any player I ever covered at the CWS captured the essence of the event.) June 13, […]
(Tom Smith of Madison considers Hall of Famer Shorty McWilliams “my second dad.” Smith, 56, a former Mississippi State linebacker, says he received a lot of sound advice from McWilliams growing up. He also got something else from Shorty Mac: his name. That’s right: The late Dick Smith, then a Meridian sports writer, named his […]
People ask me all the time: Do you miss writing sports for a living? Do you miss going to the games? Most times, I answer that I am quite happy with what I am doing now, that I still get to write a lot and that I am working for a cause that I so […]
Cliff Shanks, part of one of Mississippi’s well-known sports families, died unexpectedly at his home in Pascagoula Saturday night. He was 41. Cliff is the son of long-time SEC football official Don Shanks and the grandson of Fred Shanks, who was Boo Ferriss’s catcher at Mississippi State. Doug Shanks, Cliff’s uncle, is the head baseball […]
The first paragraph to the Associated Press story of Henry Lee Parker’s death earlier week reads: “Florence, Ala. — Henry Lee Parker, who played a role in the SMU football scandal that resulted in the NCAA shutting down its football program for two years, has died. He was 88.” Accurate? Yes. An appropriate assessment of […]
Good pitching beats good hitting, most experts will tell you, and then they’ll say starting pitching remains the most critical building block for a winning baseball team. But then there are these Mississippi State Bulldogs, who defy that second bit of baseball logic. Where State is concerned, good pitching still beats good hitting, but State’s […]
Ben Puckett was a big-time giver: to Mississippi State, to the U.S. Olympic effort, to your Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame and Museum, to his employees and to countless other causes and relief efforts. He grew up poor, made himself wealthy and then did all he could to make better the lives of other folks. […]
The name was enough to scare the bejeezus out of you, Archie Manning says: Dave “Deacon” Jones. Then there was his size: 6 feet, 5 inches and 275 muscular pounds. Then there was his speed. Says Manning, “In college I could get away from any defensive lineman. In the pros, I couldn’t run away from […]
