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I’m not going to name names, but here is my history with Ole Miss.
My family moved from Tennessee to NE Mississippi in 1968 when I was 8 years old. I was a Tennessee fan at that point, but like most boys in that part of the world, Archie Manning became a bigger than life hero to me. When Steve Kiner came out with “Archie Who?”, I renounced all things orange and enlisted in Archie’s Army. I’ve bled red and blue since then. My dad took me to my first game in 1969 (homecoming vs. Houston and Archie broke his arm). We usually ate at the Beacon on game day. Burgers, onion rings and a big piece of lemon ice box pie was the normal meal.
We moved to West Tennessee when I entered high school, but I will always consider myself a Mississippi boy. We were 2 hours from Oxford, so we continued to make yearly trips to games.
I played golf at a small college in West Tennessee and have lived in Nashville since graduating in 1982. I spent the time since then as a high school teacher and coach. I coached football and track for 36 years. After hanging up my whistle, I became an assistant golf coach. I plan to retire at the end of May and spend my days on a golf course.
I took my son to his first Ole Miss game in Oxford in 2002 when he was 9. We beat Florida that day. We rode down with a group that included Ethan Flatt’s dad. I coached Ethan in high school. Ethan took my son into the locker room after the game and he was hooked for life. While my son was at Harding University in Arkansas, he and I came up with a plan to convince my wife that we needed season tickets. We told her that since he couldn’t come home very often, I could meet him in Memphis 6-7 times each fall. She thought it was a great idea, so he and I have had season tickets since 2015. We ate at the Beacon most weekends and miss it. About 10 years ago, by chance, I ran into a few old friends from my middle school church youth group at the Beacon. One of them had a son who had classes with my son at Harding. Small world. We now meet several times a year in Memphis and ride together.
Our tix are in SEZ 6 and have a view of the game that this old offensive line coach loves. We have a great group of Rebels that sit around us and look forward to seeing them each fall.
I have seen some highs and too many lows as a Rebel fan and learned not to take the good years for granted. This year has been so special.
I am thrilled to have Pete as our coach, to have David Johnson back as a site manager and looking forward to seeing how Ole Miss 365 shapes up.
Go Rebels!In the old days, the AFCA convention was a place for a lot of face to face job interviews. With modern technology, that might not be the case now. I used to attend it yearly as a high school coach. It was fun being in the same sessions as the guys you saw roaming the sidelines on tv. But that was in the days when big time coaching salaries were tame compared to today.
