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Hill Country basketball: It’s like a religion, and everyone believes

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When Hill Country teams come to Jackson, the townspeople follow, like these from Blue Mountain. (Photo by Keith Warren)

We can argue from now to next year about whether Mississippi is a football state, a basketball state, a baseball state — or, for that matter, any kind of sports state at all.

What we cannot argue is this: In northeast Mississippi, most often referred to as Hill Country, basketball is king.

Always has been. And, I would wager, always will be.

Rick Cleveland

Let’s take, for example, the recent Mississippi public schools state tournament that concluded over the weekend at the Mississippi Coliseum. Fourteen state champions in seven divisions were crowned. Eight were from up in the state’s northeast corner. The only time Hill Country teams lost was when they played each other.

A quick recounting: In Class 1A, the Blue Mountain girls and the Biggersville boys were winners. In Class 2A – stop me if you’ve heard this before – Ingomar swept both the boys and girls titles. In Class 3A, the Belmont girls and Booneville boys are champions, and the Booneville girls lost by one point to Belmont. In Class 4A, Tishomingo County’s girls easily won the crown, and in Class 7A, Tupelo’s girls won it all.

You will note that nearly all the Hill Country champions are from the MHSAA’s smaller divisions, and there’s a reason. For the most part, northeast Mississippi schools have just said “no” to consolidation. And that has a lot to do with basketball, or more specifically, with the pride the small towns and communities have in their basketball teams.

“Basketball is almost like a religion up there,” says MHSAA executive director Rickey Neaves, and he should know. Neaves played at Saltillo and coached, taught and was an administrator at Booneville. “That’s the way people are raised. It’s in their blood. There are basketball goals in every yard, every park and any place, really, that’s level enough to dribble a ball.”

Neaves knows because it is in his blood, too.

These words are written by a guy from Hattiesburg, nearly at the other end of the state. But they are also written by a guy who learned to read by reading the sports sections of daily newspapers, especially the scoreboard pages with all the scores and statistics in small print. And I can remember picking up the Jackson newspapers back in the 1950s when I was learning to read and being flabbergasted to see high school basketball scores in September and October. Schools from exotic-sounding places such as Jumpertown, Hickory Flat, Ingomar, Potts Camp, Wheeler, Baldwyn, Blue Mountain and West Union were already playing basketball. And it seemed as if they played every night. The 1956 Ingomar girls won the state championship and finished with a 54-0 record. Fifty-four and zero!

I remember asking my daddy about it, and his saying, “Those schools don’t play football, son. They don’t have enough students for a football team. They play basketball year-round.”

He showed me on a state map where those towns were and he told me this, too: “Those teams know how to play.”

For five decades now, I’ve watched those teams from tiny towns and communities make the three hours-plus drive down to the Big House, and to this day am still amazed at how many folks follow the yellow school buses to support their favorite team. Blue Mountain is a community of about 800, but there appeared at least 2,000 blue-clad fans yelling themselves hoarse at the championship game.

“We get support from all over Tippah County,” Regina Chills, the Blue Mountain coach, said. “There were people from Ripley and Walnut here cheering for us.”

One strongly suspects there were also Blue Mountain ex-patriots who now live in other parts of Mississippi in attendance as well. Basketball pride and tradition runs deep in Hill Country.

Norris an d Jonathan Ashley after Ingomar’s 2020 State championship.

Take Ingomar, which won both the 2A titles. That makes 20 state championships total for Ingomar, 13 for the girls and seven for the boys. This one was particularly special in Ingomar, because Jonathan Ashley, son of Ingomar coaching legend Norris Ashley, won his second as a coach, his first in the Big House. Norris Ashley, whose 1978 team famously won the Overall State Championship (back when there was such a thing), representing the smallest classification. It was Hoosiers in Mississippi.

Norris Ashley, who died just over a year ago, won nine state titles and more than 1,700 games. His son learned from one of the best to ever do it by following his daddy’s teams to the Big House nearly ever year. Norris Ashley was like Hill Country deity. You think this year’s championship wasn’t extra special in Ingomar and in the Ashley family?

Excellent coaching has been the staple of Hill Country basketball. Ashley and others such as brothers Milton and Malcolm Kuykendall, Harvey Childers, Jimmy Guy McDonald, Gerald Caveness, Kermit Davis Sr., and, let us not forget, Baldwyn legend Babe McCarthy easily would have won elections for mayor in their towns. But then, why take a demotion?

The next generation of Hill Country coaches — folks such as Jonathan Ashley and Trent Adair at Ingomar, Cliff Little at Biggersville, and Mike Smith at Booneville — carry on the tradition. 

As Rickey Neaves put it, “Those coaches, in many cases, are the most respected people in their communities. You rarely see them leave. Why would they? The communities support them so well. The gyms are packed. The kids grow up wanting to play. That’s why good coaches gravitate to that area and stay there. Who wouldn’t want to coach basketball where basketball is so important?”

Who, indeed?

MHSAA State Championship results

Class 7A: Boys: Meridian 54, Clinton 50; Girls: Tupelo 47, Germantown 38

Class 6A: Boys: Olive Branch 59, Ridgeland 56; Girls; Neshoba Central 53, Terry 39

Class 5A: Boys: Canton 58, Yazoo City 40; Girls: Laurel 40, Canton 32

Class 4A: Boys: Raymond 53, McComb 28; Girls: Tishomingo County 37, Morton 17

Class 3A: Boys: Booneville 46, Coahoma County 43 (OT); Girls: Belmont 40, Booneville 39

Class 2A: Boys: Ingomar 48, Bogue Chitto 46; Ingomar 57, New Site 40

Class 1A: Boys: Biggersville 45, McAdams 41; Girls: Blue Mountain 38, Lumberton 36

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Mississippi Today

On this day in 1909, Matthew Henson reached the North Pole

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mississippitoday.org – @MSTODAYnews – 2025-04-06 07:00:00

April 6, 1909

Matthew Henson arrived ahead of the Admiral Peary Expedition to plant the American flag at the North Pole.

Matthew Henson reached the North Pole, planting the American flag. Traveling with the Admiral Peary Expedition, Henson reportedly reached the North Pole almost 45 minutes before Peary and the rest of the men. 

“As I stood there on top of the world and I thought of the hundreds of men who had lost their lives in the effort to reach it, I felt profoundly grateful that I had the honor of representing my race,” he said. 

While some would later dispute whether the expedition had actually reached the North Pole, Henson’s journey seems no less amazing. 

Born in Maryland to sharecropping parents who survived attacks by the KKK, he grew up working, becoming a cabin boy and sailing around the world. 

After returning, he became a salesman at a clothing store in Washington, D.C., where he waited on a customer named Robert Peary. Pearywas so impressed with Henson and his tales of the sea that he hired him as his personal valet. 

Henson joined Peary on a trip to Nicaragua. Impressed with Henson’s seamanship, Peary made Henson his “first man” on the expeditions that followed to the Arctic. When the expedition returned, Peary drew praise from the world while Henson’s contributions were ignored. 

Over time, his work came to be recognized. In 1937, he became the first African-American life member of The Explorers Club. Seven years later, he received the Peary Polar Expedition Medal and was received at the White House by President Truman and later President Eisenhower. 

“There can be no vision to the (person) the horizon of whose vision is limited by the bounds of self,” he said. “But the great things of the world, the great accomplishments of the world, have been achieved by (people with) … high ideals and … great visions. The path is not easy, the climb is rugged and hard, but the glory at the end is worthwhile.” 

Henson died in 1955, and his body was re-interred with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery. The U.S. Postal Service featured him on a stamp, and the U.S. Navy named a Pathfinder class ship after him. In 2000, the National Geographic Society awarded him the Hubbard Medal.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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A win for press freedom: Judge dismisses Gov. Phil Bryant’s lawsuit against Mississippi Today

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mississippitoday.org – @GanucheauAdam – 2025-04-04 13:35:00

Madison County Circuit Court Judge Bradley Mills dismissed former Gov. Phil Bryant’s defamation lawsuit against Mississippi Today on Friday, ending a nearly two-year case that became a beacon in the fight for American press freedom.

For the past 22 months, we’ve vigorously defended our Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting and our characterizations of Bryant’s role in the Mississippi welfare scandal. We are grateful today that the court, after careful deliberation, dismissed the case.

The reporting speaks for itself. The truth speaks for itself.

This judgment is so much more than vindication for Mississippi Today — it’s a monumental victory for every single Mississippian. Journalism is a public good that all of us deserve and need. Too seldom does our state’s power structure offer taxpayers true government accountability, and Mississippians routinely learn about the actions of their public officials only because of journalism like ours. This reality is precisely why we launched our newsroom nine years ago, and it’s why we devoted so much energy and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars defending ourselves against this lawsuit. It was an existential threat to our organization that took time and resources away from our primary responsibilities — which is often the goal of these kinds of legal actions. But our fight was never just about us; it was about preserving the public’s sacred, constitutional right to critical information that journalists provide, just as our nation’s Founding Fathers intended.

Mississippi Today remains as committed as ever to deep investigative journalism and working to provide government accountability. We will never be afraid to reveal the actions of powerful leaders, even in the face of intimidation or the threat of litigation. And we will always stand up for Mississippians who deserve to know the truth, and our journalists will continue working to catalyze justice for people in this state who are otherwise cheated, overlooked, or ignored.

We appreciate your support, and we are honored to serve you with the high quality, public service journalism you’ve come to expect from Mississippi Today.

READ MORE: Judge Bradley Mills’ order dismissing the case

READ MORE: Mississippi Today’s brief in support of motion to dismiss

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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Meet Willye B. White: A Mississippian we should all celebrate

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mississippitoday.org – @rick_cleveland – 2025-04-04 11:09:00

In an interview years and years ago, the late Willye B. White told me in her warm, soothing Delta voice, “A dream without a plan is just a wish. As a young girl, I had a plan.”

She most definitely did have a plan. And she executed said plan, as we shall see.

And I know what many readers are thinking: “Who the heck was Willye B. White?” That, or: “Willye B. White, where have I heard that name before?”

Rick Cleveland

Well, you might have driven an eight-mile, flat-as-a-pancake stretch of U.S. 49E, between Sidon and Greenwood, and seen the marker that says: “Willye B. White Memorial Highway.” Or you might have visited the Olympic Room at the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame and seen where White was a five-time participant and two-time medalist in the Summer Olympics as a jumper and a sprinter.

If you don’t know who Willye B. White was, you should. Every Mississippian should. So pour yourself a cup of coffee or a glass of iced tea, follow along and prepare to be inspired.

Willye B. White was born on the last day of 1939 in Money, near Greenwood, and was raised by grandparents. As a child, she picked cotton to help feed her family. When she wasn’t picking cotton, she was running, really fast, and jumping, really high and really long distances.

She began competing in high school track and field meets at the age of 10. At age 11, she scored enough points in a high school meet to win the competition all by herself. At age 16, in 1956, she competed in the Summer Olympics at Melbourne, Australia.

Her plan then was simple. The Olympics, on the other side of the world, would take place in November. “I didn’t know much about the Olympics, but I knew that if I made the team and I went to the Olympics, I wouldn’t have to pick cotton that year. I was all for that.”

Just imagine. You are 16 years old, a high school sophomore, a poor Black girl. You are from Money, Mississippi, and you walk into the stadium at the Melbourne Cricket Grounds to compete before a crowd of more than 100,000 strangers nearly 10,000 miles from your home.

She competed in the long jump. She won the silver medal to become the first-ever American to win a medal in that event. And then she came home to segregated Mississippi, to little or no fanfare. This was the year after Emmett Till, a year younger than White, was brutally murdered just a short distance from where she lived.

“I used to sit in those cotton fields and watch the trains go by,” she once told an interviewer. “I knew they were going to some place different, some place into the hills and out of those cotton fields.”

Her grandfather had fought in France in World War I. “He told me about all the places he saw,” White said. “I always wanted to travel and see the places he talked about.”

Travel, she did. In the late 1950s there were two colleges that offered scholarships to young, Black female track and field athletes. One was Tuskegee in Alabama, the other was Tennessee State in Nashville. White chose Tennessee State, she said, “because it was the farthest away from those cotton fields.”

She was getting started on a track and field career that would take her, by her own count, to 150 different countries across the globe. She was the best female long jumper in the U.S. for two decades. She competed in Olympics in Melbourne, Rome, Tokyo, Mexico City and Munich. She would compete on more than 30 U.S. teams in international events. In 1999, Sports Illustrated named her one of the top 100 female athletes of the 20th century.

Chicago became White’s home for most of adulthood. This was long before Olympic athletes were rich, making millions in endorsements and appearance fees. She needed a job, so she became a nurse. Later on, she became an public health administrator as well as a coach. She created the Willye B. White Foundation to help needy children with health and after school care. 

In 1982, at age 42, she returned to Mississippi to be inducted into the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame and was welcomed back to a reception at the Governor’s Mansion by Gov. William Winter, who introduced her during induction ceremonies. Twenty-six years after she won the silver medal at Melbourne, she called being hosted and celebrated by the governor of her home state “the zenith of her career.”

Willye B. White died of pancreatic cancer in a Chicago hospital in 2007. While working on an obituary/column about her, I talked to the late, great Ralph Boston, the three-time Olympic long jump medalist from Laurel. They were Tennessee State and U.S. Olympic teammates. They shared a healthy respect from one another, and Boston clearly enjoyed talking about White.

At one point, Ralph asked me, “Did you know Willye B. had an even more famous high school classmate.”

No, I said, I did not.

“Ever heard of Morgan Freeman?” Ralph said, laughing.

Of course.

“I was with Morgan one time and I asked him if he ever ran track,” Ralph said, already chuckling about what would come next.

“Morgan said he did not run track in high school because he knew if he ran, he’d have to run against Willye B. White, and Morgan said he didn’t want to lose to a girl.”

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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