Now that our daughter Ruth has graduated from Ole Miss, our fall ritual of going to Oxford in the fall has diminished. It’s a bit bittersweet.
For many Northsiders, the fall ritual of going to Oxford, Starkville or Hattiesburg for football games is part of the fabric of Mississippi life.
Although I went to Harvard and my paternal grandparents, sister and brother went to Mississippi State, I am designated an Ole Miss fan by marriage, plus both my parents went to Ole Miss. All my in-laws went to Ole Miss except my nephew-in-law Curt Knight.
With Ruth going to Ole Miss, that sealed the deal.
Having been born and raised in Jackson, going to JA and Prep, Ruth had a hankering to go out of state, which would have cost me a fortune. I bribed her to go to Ole Miss, offering to pay two year’s worth of postgraduate rent if she stayed in state. Now she’s planning to move to New York City. Yikes!
I still came out way ahead. And as it turns out, Ruth had a fantastic experience at Ole Miss as a Kappa Kappa Gamma, making friends from all across the country. She thanks me now and I got a pay raise when she left Prep for Ole Miss, given her academic scholarship.
So with Ruth at Ole Miss, we dived into the Ole Miss parents and alumni scene, joined a Grove tent, the whole nine yards.
We were blessed that a lifelong family friend, Charlie Dunagin, longtime editor and publisher of the McComb Enterprise-Journal has a beautiful house four blocks south of the square. We often stayed with Charlie and his wife,Virgie.
The Ole Miss tailgate scene is legendary and Oxford has boomed into one of the best college towns in the country. Ginny loved seeing her college buddies and I thoroughly enjoyed tagging along and being immersed in the wonderful slice of Americana.
My friend Bob Crisler says if he ever writes a book about Northside culture it’s going to be titled, “Y’all Goin’ to the Game?”
I have been to Starkville for the game as well and the tailgating scene is equally fine. In many ways, the Starkville tailgate scene is more manageable, more pastoral and spread out, different from the Ole Miss Grove chaos. One’s not better than the other, just different.
Both stadiums are magnificent, a perfect size. Starkville, like Oxford, is booming and is a great college town.
I root for both Ole Miss and State. I think all Mississippians should root for their home state teams except during the Egg Bowl when each side can claim its own.
At Harvard, the big rivalry was the Harvard-Yale game, known still today as The Game, although much bigger college football rivalries have far surpassed it. Interesting to note the Ole Miss’ colors are Yale blue and Harvard crimson.
At Harvard, I was an editor on the school newspaper, the Harvard Crimson. Every year during the week of the Harvard-Yale game we would publish a scathing satire column about Yale, poking all kinds of fun at our rivals. It was all in good fun.
That experience made me think that all football rivalries were lighthearted and fun. I mean, it’s just football. That misguided mentality led me to the biggest publishing mistake of my career.
Some 20 years ago, my Greenwood High school buddy Jim Fraiser submitted a satirical biting column poking fun at Mississippi State. I skimmed it superficially and pasted on to the op-ed page and never gave it another thought. Man oh man, was that a mistake.
The day of publication, my phone blew up with irate State fans. I have blasted politicians for wasting millions of tax dollars, but the reaction to those articles paled in comparison to this blow up. Hundreds of subscribers cancelled their subscriptions. It all went viral on social media. Dear friends, State fans, expressed profound disappointment. That’s when I learned that Mississippians take their football very, very seriously.
I remember walking out of Sakura Bana with friend Hank Aiken, having been lectured by my Wednesday sushi buddies about the stupidity of my publishing fiasco. As we passed by cars in the parking lot, Hank pointed out all the State vanity license plates. “These are your subscribers,” he said. Duh!
But that’s all water under the bridge and all my State friends forgave me after a few decades. And now I am very careful when writing about football. I have rung cowbells.
Ginny and I plan to make the Florida game and stay with Aubrey and Toni Lucas. They always have a great after-game party/feast.
But I have to admit, watching on my big screen TV at home is a luxury. And it’s great husband/wife time with Ginny who gets quite excited, jumpin up and shouting out “get ‘em, git ‘em, git ‘em” just like her mother Dottie Cole, whom I miss so much, used to do.
I record in advance and begin watching 1:40 minutes after kick off, careful not to look at my phone, which allows us to skip 1:40 minutes of inane commercials and go live just at the start of the last quarter. Perfect.
College football is fun again now that the transfer portal has wiped out what I call franchise football, in which a handful of teams locked up all the players and dominated with lopsided victories.
No more. Vanderbilt is ranked above Alabama. The world has changed forever.
Nick Saban was the master of franchise football, but Lane Kiffin may be the master of the transfer portal. The unpredictability is making college football exciting.
Kiffin’s recruitment of Trinidad Chambliss was a master stroke. It is truly amazing to see this young man adapt to division one football in just three games. It took him just one quarter in the LSU game to figure out one of the best division one defenses in the nation.
So now Ole Miss is number four. Of all the teams in the nation, there is only one team that has managed to make its endearing nickname stick — Ole Miss.
Enjoy it while it lasts, Ole Miss fans. The Egg Bowl awaits! Ole Miss tragedy football has a long, sad history.
